Chuck Versus the Lost Childhood - Revised
by Neale
Summary: Ok, this is the new and hopefully improved Chuck Versus the Lost Childhood - Revised. It's totally AU, some things don't even match the history of the real world here. The basic story line is the same, just Chuck and Ellie's background has been shifted even further from canon than the original version. Needless to say, the Charah is strong in this one ; )
1. Lost Childhood

**Sorry, I was planning on picking up Chuck Verses the Lost Childhood, but when I tried to work out how to pick it up, I found a lot of plot points that I didn't like any more and started changing them. When I'd made changes to over half the chapters I realised that it was pretty much a new story now so I'm closing off that version and starting again as** **Chuck Verses the Lost Childhood - Revised. Oops! ;^) Sorry, that's just the way it worked out.**

 **This chapter has references to rather unpleasant topics and same sex relationships, so anyone who has issues with these topics should not read it. It may explain how General Beckman ended up with Roan, too.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney princess tale.**

Chuck's childhood had ended in November Nineteen Eighty Nine, just after his eighth birthday. It hadn't exactly been idyllic before that, with what were to him scary men watching them most of the time, his Mommy starting their fighting training with their first steps (OK, it had been mostly fun games for the first few years but he could fight well enough to take down multiple bigger opponents by the time he started school), and her and Auntie Em coming and going all the time... but he had Sammie, and Nora, Mommy, Auntie Em and Auntie Sue, he even had Daddy when he wasn't off working on something, though he seemed to do that an awful lot of the time. But just after his eight birthday, Uncle Joe took Sammie away on one of his trips, and they never come back.

Life was empty for him without Sammie, and Auntie Em didn't stop crying for the two week before she left to go try and find Sammie, and she didn't come back. Things got even worse after that, because Mr Graham, that big scary black man Mommy and Daddy worked for, came to the house and he and Mommy were shouting at each other, then Mommy went away on another trip a couple of weeks after Auntie Em left, and _she_ didn't came back either. Daddy spent _all_ of his time working and talking crazy after that, even more so after that time he snuck into his Daddy's workroom just after Ellie's twelfth birthday and set off something on that computer with the flashing 'Activate' prompt, and then about a month later Auntie Sue came to get them in the early hours of the morning because Daddy was gone too.

She told them that their Daddy had called Auntie Di when he left and asked her to look after them, so as soon as they got back to her place they called Auntie Di and she explained in that no nonsense way of her's that she, Uncle Bry, Uncle Roan and everyone else the CIA knew about would have to stay away or Mr Graham and those other scary men would find them, but she told them that as soon as Auntie Em got there they were being moved somewhere else where she would be looking after them... and Uncle Buck, Auntie Sue and Lexie would be moving into the house just over the back fence a few weeks later...

* * *

Chuck shook his head in an attempt to dispel this trip down memory lane, because it never went well and he knew it, but of course that didn't work... Auntie Di had done as she promised, a week later Auntie Em turned up at Auntie Sue's place and the three of them left San Francisco to move down to Arcadia in Los Angeles. He and Ellie had become blondes like Auntie Em, they all had new names ( _stupid_ names! Charles _Irving_ Bartowski? What sort of name was that? They only got to keep their first names, and even there they'd had to agree to be called Chuck and Ellie instead of Charlie and Nora to make it harder to find them. Eleanora became Eleanor Faye Bartowski and Auntie Em became their widowed Aunt on their father's side, Emmeline Lisa Larouche, but her and _Ellie's_ new names didn't sound as stupid as his did) and ages too, because Ellie had been made just under two years older and he was made just over two years older. The story was that Auntie Em was raising them because their parents were working on the pipeline up in Alaska, that was a complicated story for a family who were trying to keep a low profile, but at least they didn't officially need to work Auntie Sue, Uncle Buck, Lexie, Benjie and Katy into their story, because they'd moved into their own house over the back fence. Their story was that Uncle Buck was supposed to be Auntie Sue's husband, and he worked for a construction company. The story they used for nearly six month old Benjie (Benjamin Wayne Johnson) was that his parents had both been posted overseas for the Gulf War, and two year old Katy (Caitlin Samantha Caine) was living with Auntie Sue most of the time too, because Aunty Charly was running all over the world, setting up and helping manage their organisation. Then Auntie Di had had her baby Josie (Josephine Mary Larouche) a few months later, and she was staying with them too while Auntie Di worked, but the story was that Auntie Em was raising her because her parents had been posted overseas for the Gulf War, the same reason Benjie was staying with Auntie Sue.

Auntie Di had made them a proposal before they left San Francisco, she explained that she'd recently been made a Major in the Air Force but she was actually working for the Defence Clandestine Service and National Security Agency and with some friends' help, she'd officially established an intelligence group so that Auntie Em would be able to work for her in secret, but Auntie Em couldn't do enough on her own to keep that group going. Auntie Di knew that even then they were both every bit as brilliant as their Mommy and Daddy though, so she asked them if they would help Auntie Em so that they could make her group into something that produced enough to stop people asking questions about the money going into it, the money that would be paying their bills.

Chuck went along with Ellie when she said that they didn't really have any other option. Auntie Em had looked angry at Auntie Di for asking them to do this, but she seemed to be angry at her sister a lot back then, so that wasn't unusual. Auntie Em got even angrier when she found out that they'd already staged a series of 'gas main' explosions under a row of houses in Arcadia to give them the excuse to acquire the properties and commence a major reconstruction project...

As soon as she disappeared, looking for Sammie, the family had met and agreed that they needed to do something to protect her, and Sammie, and Mary and her family as well after she was sent to Russia. They had found a report about residents in a strip of houses in Arcadia complaining about bad gas smells in their back yards, but the gas company was claiming there was nothing wrong and refusing to do anything about it. The residents had a court date coming up to try and get the government to force the gas company to fix whatever it was, but Roan and Charly met with them before that, posing as eco activists, and got their agreement to do something drastic to try and put pressure on the gas company.

A couple of days before the court date, when everyone was safely out of the way, they set off a string of explosions along the gas main that blasted great holes in the back yards and half demolished the houses, which made the court came down hard on the gas company, forcing them to pay all the residents market value value _before_ the explosions for their houses, plus damages, but sell off the properties to the Cinders Corporation for the independent valuation set for the strip _after_ the explosions, so it cost the gas company millions and the family acquired the entire strip along Arcadia Wash between West Camino Real and West Pamela for less than it would have been as empty land... With a little strategic prodding from Roan, the court _also_ made a ruling that forced the gas company to pay Cinder Corp's construction company to replace all the gas mains and have them independently tested to confirm that they were no longer a risk to the community. Once the testing of the new gas mains (routed along the back fence, rather than through the massive hole where the old ones had been dug out) was completed, the reconstruction started, and a significant element of that reconstruction was the series of interconnected bunkers that they built under all the properties in the row, which would serve as the base for this group of Auntie Di's.

By the time they moved to Arcadia, most of the reconstruction was completed, and Auntie Di and Charly, Uncle Bry and Roan and most of Mommy's friends had were working on creating the organisation they'd all be working with as part of that group, so a lot of _their_ work in the beginning was actually sorting out everything to make the companies that they were using look legitimate. Chuck and Ellie's ability to learn how to do prodigious amounts of work quickly and well was tested in the first few months as they set all that up, on top the work that they were officially supposed to be doing for Auntie Di's group. Pops, Uncle Jimmy and Uncle Mike, Auntie Belle, Sam and Gypsy had also been added to the family, along with several others who supposedly worked for Pops' construction company with Uncle Buck, Uncle Jimmy and Uncle Mike.

Soon after they moved to Arcadia, Auntie Em had another argument with Auntie Di, because she discovered that Auntie Di and the others had been moving forward with a lot more than the houses. What she discovered was that they'd also made a deal with Los Angeles County and the FAA in late December Eighty Nine for the Cinders Corporation to get the contracts to take over the stalled redevelopment proposal for the El Monte Airport area (only three miles from the houses), which rerouted Santa Anita Ave to run along the edge of Rio Hondo, shifted about three thousand feet of Rio Hondo across far enough to make room to fit Santa Anita Ave between it and the airport, moved the Lower Azusa Rd bridge up a few hundred feet and expanded the El Monte Airport property to extend all the way from the rerouted Lower Azusa Rd to the railway, which allowed the runway to be extended to six thousand feet long, and rezoned the land at both ends of the runway to prohibit any buildings within five hundred feet of the ends of the runway and no buildings taller than single storey for another fifteen hundred feet beyond that, which ensured that the approach and departure paths of the airport would remain clear. These changes made El Monte more viable as a commercial airport, while a strict schedule of noise restrictions for the airport made the proposal acceptable to the local community. But the point of the deal they made was that Emerald City would be the owners and managers the El Monte Airport once it was rebuilt, so they'd had the power to veto any proposals that could restrict their ability to use the airport, as well as giving them priority over all other airport users. They built a hangar complex for the group that was big enough to take at least four or five airliners and several other smaller planes and helicopters at the airport, and by the time the airport officially reopened in May 1990, they had a fleet of planes and helicopters ready to use it.

When Chuck asked why Mister Graham and the others didn't just ask Auntie Di where they were Auntie Em sat him down and explained that her Papa went away to war just after her Mama got pregnant with her, but he'd died in the war and her Mama met and married Auntie Di's Daddy about four years after her Papa died, so Auntie Di had a different Daddy to her. She also explained that her Mama had given her her Papa's name, Burdon, and she had been angry that her Mama and Auntie Di's Daddy had never bothered to change her name to match their's (she didn't bring up the fact that the uppity Beckman family had usually just referred to her as 'the illegitimate one' and tried to pretend that she didn't exist, so they had been quite happy when she disappeared), so she wrote down that she came from somewhere else when she left home to go to MIT like her Papa... and his, while Auntie Di had gone to Harvard like the rest of _her_ Daddy's family. So there was actually nothing in either of their records to show that they were related and they had never told anyone about it. She'd laughed and hugged him when Chuck nodded very seriously when she was done, saying that that made sense.

* * *

It hadn't been easy, going to school, helping look after Josie, Benjie, Katy and Lexie and working harder than most grown ups for Auntie Di, but Auntie Di was right, they _were_ all brilliant, so Major Beckman's new Spectre ( _Spec_ ial Projects and _T_ actical _RE_ search) group's services quickly came to be well respected and in great demand. Then he and Ellie got what they agreed was the best present ever just after Ellie's thirteenth birthday, because Mommy came back, as Mary Elizabeth Donner to make it harder to track the kids via her. They were processing a lot of work by then, and there was already enough demand for their work to justify a major expansion of the group, in fact it had grown to more than triple its original size, going from the thirty odd people they had on the books originally (Air Force, Army and Navy identities for Chuck, Ellie, Auntie Em and Sue, Uncle Bry and twenty odd others) to well over a hundred (Army, Navy, Air Force _and_ Marine identities for all six of them and John Casey, who was officially Auntie Di's new assistant, plus eighty odd other people around the country and in Europe that they had working with them), and Emma, Charly, Jack, Ellie and Chuck were building corporate empires for them as well to keep their activities under the radar, because they had many times more people _off_ the books, they were quickly growing into quite a serious organisation.

Ellie and Chuck knew that they weren't getting the whole story of what happened when she was away, but from Mom's expression, and Auntie Em and Auntie Sue's too after they'd talked in private, Ellie wasn't sure that she _wanted_ to know the whole story. All they were told at the time was that Uncle Hartley had had a different version of what Daddy did loaded into him to make him turn into someone else, someone called Alexei Volkoff, and he was sent to Russia. Mom was sent after him to bring him home when he was due to turn back into himself, but he didn't. Someone had also told him that she was a CIA spy sent to kill him, and who and where they and their father were, so she couldn't get away and come home for fear of someone coming to hurt them, not until Auntie Di and Uncle Bry got word to her that Daddy had disappeared and they were safe.

What she swore Emma, Sue, Bai, Charly, Di, Roan, Bry and Buck to secrecy about was the fact that Ellie and Chuck almost certainly had a half sister out there somewhere now. Volkoff had had his fun torturing and raping her after she was captured, and she'd only managed to avoid being killed by getting him to confirm that she was in fact a KGB sleeper, Marjan Zaleska, who'd been sent to America when she was sixteen to get herself recruited into the intelligence community from university, and convince him that she'd changed sides because of the CIA's betrayal so she was loyal to him. She of course didn't tell him that she'd stopped being an active sleeper after she met Stefan Jaworski and they fell in love, but even though she managed to play him well enough to avoid having to have any more sex with him after that, it turned out that she was already pregnant. They took the baby girl away at birth and she never saw her again, but she was in no state to face what had been forced into her by that animal like that anyway, Volkoff wasn't Hartley, he was a monster. Once the baby was born though, she started making plans to get out of there as soon as she could. It was actually the men from the Spetsbrigada that made up the core of Volkoff's security forces who had helped her get away, because they respected her as a warrior and did not approve of what was being done to one who had proved themselves as she had.

* * *

As well as all the work they were doing (For Auntie Di, the 'family' and school, because their initial cover story had been that their parents were away working on the pipeline up in Alaska... they'd said that Mary's job up there hadn't been paying that much and she hardly saw their father anyway so she came back to help look after them when she turned up about nine months later... but that hardly paid enough for them to live in Arcadia where the best schools were, so Ellie and Chuck would need to earn scholarships if they wanted to go to university, and they had to make themselves stand out amongst some of the best prospects in the country. Di quickly regretted the decision to have the DIA's Cover Bureau create Emma, Ellie and Chuck's new identities, but she'd thought at the time that they'd need official cover identities to give them solid enough backgrounds to work for the government in her group and they were locked into that now.), they were using the resources of the intelligence group to search for Sammie, and Mom, Auntie Sue, Auntie Em, Auntie Charly, Uncle Bry, Uncle Buck and Uncle Roan were teaching them all the things they were best at, which meant a _lot_ of training. Chuck had heard Auntie Em crying to Mom sometimes about it not being right to take their childhoods away from them like this, but Mom always reminded her that it wasn't _them_ or Di who had taken Ellie and Chuck's childhoods away, it was Graham and those other bastards!

Over the next ten years or so until Ellie and Chuck finished university, they'd worked their arses off. Major Beckman's secretive Spectre Group had quickly became the hottest property of the intelligence community, so much so that the group had grown to more than a dozen times bigger and branched out from military intelligence because the FBI, ATF, DEA, US Marshals (for the witness protection program), and even the CIA had to avail themselves of the group's services to get the results they were after. Mary, Di, Sue, Bry and Roan also extended the training that they were giving Ellie and Chuck (and Anna, after she worked out what the family secret was), either by getting them into training that shouldn't have been possible, like special operations training (even the SEALs' for Ellie and Chuck) and aviator training (all the way up to supersonic jets and the big multi engined transport planes and helicopters), and they started going on special operations and intelligence missions with Mary, Bry, John and Roan, because part of their training had been how to make themselves look older, and convince everyone else that they actually looked younger than they were, their abilities helped with that as they were better than most.

When they started ramping up Ellie and Chuck's weapons training in the first half of Ninety One, Mary contacted her friends in Russia and Israel, and about a month later she went out one night and came back with a truck load of high end special operations weapons, ammunition and explosives. The majority of it had come from Russia, but the best weaponry from the rest of the world was included too... John, Uncle Bry and the other operatives drooled when they saw what was there. Di and the others had had their Arcadia base created in early Nineteen Ninety. Once they located a row of suitable houses together in a location that met their requirements with owners who wanted to get out, they engineered a series of major gas main explosions under the yards of the houses to create the situation which let them acquire and completely rebuild the row of houses without attracting undue attention, once the initial flurry of news coverage that large gas explosions in a fairly affluent residential area was bound to attract had died down. The rebuilding work included adding garages that would take the trucks they used, basements under the houses and a string of interconnected bunkers that ran the entire length of the row, so there was plenty of room to expand the more ordinary special ops armoury they originally had in the bunker, just like when they added all the other equipment they used, and adding a _lot_ of security to all the houses as well. Officially, the Spectre group's California base was just listed as 'somewhere in California', the Spectre group officially having facilities at Los Alamitos, Moffett Field and Mare Island helped muddy the waters about where it was and they quickly learned how to cover their tracks and keep themselves off everyone's radar.

Ellie and Chuck had no trouble earning the scholarships they needed to get into university, as they were both the valedictorians for their years. Ellie went into medicine at UCLA in Ninety Three and got herself locked into the trauma and neurology tracks (because Chuck, Mom, Uncle Bry and John came back from the missions they went on with bullet wounds and other injuries all too often so she needed to look after them, and they'd gotten Stefan into therapy after he called Auntie Di to tell her what he'd done but his brain was half fried by that thing he'd tried on himself after Chuck did it without harming himself, so he was up at Red Mountain with Leo Dreyfus, a therapist who was one of Auntie Di's friends, as Stephen Donner (they were going to use Bartowski but realised that that would just put him, Ellie and Chuck in more danger because he was in DC at first), but it was obvious that it was going to take more than therapy to fix him, so Ellie was studying to become a neurologist), and Chuck went into Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Stanford in Ninety Six. They had been worried about Chuck going to Stanford, because there was always a chance that CIA might still be keeping an eye on San Francisco in hope that his father may go back there, but Stanford was the best university that had offered him a scholarship and he took his looks mainly from his mother, so they were hoping to get away with it.

They had one win in regard to Chuck going to Stanford, because they'd had the hangars at Moffett Field NAS formally transferred to the Spectre group in and legally sold them to Emerald City early Ninety, long before the NAS was closed down and handed over to NASA in early Ninety Four, so they were irrevocably theirs. There had been two primary reasons for acquiring the Moffett Field Hangars originally, the first was to give them somewhere to fly into in San Francisco until they got the runways fixed up at the old Naval Auxiliary Air Facility on Mare Island, and the other was to give them an alternate base for operations in the San Francisco area to their facilities on Mare Island.

The NASA administrators' attempt to pressure them into giving up their hangars and leave after Moffett Field was handed over to NASA in Ninety Four by requiring them to strip every speck of the contaminated materials out the hangers and dispose of them properly had actually played right into their hands, because petty minded bureaucrats trying to play power games like that just pissed them off and it gave them the excuse they needed to completely demolish and rebuild the hangars, which in turn gave them the opportunity to create an on-going base of operations to serve their more confidential requirements in the bunkers they built under the hangars.

That was a large part of the reason they decided to make the Emerald City Hangars there into a long term facility, though it also gave them access to the adjacent Ames Research Center's facilities. The fact that having the facility there made it easy to keep a team close by to support and watch over Chuck and Anna when Chuck got the scholarship to go to Stanford in Palo Alto a few years was just a side benefit, though a very important one for the family.

* * *

Of course, the 'poor scholarship kid' cover that Chuck was stuck with meant that he had to go with the allocated housing as well, but with Skip going to UCLA instead of Stanford, he didn't have a ready made room mate like Anna and Jill did, so he ended up sharing with a trust fund jock from Connecticut by the name of Bryce Larkin. However they found that this wasn't as random as it appeared at first when they looked into the matter after everything fell apart, because Larkin's family had used its influence to get him placed with the brightest of the scholarship kids (Chuck, obviously) in an attempt to get him the help they knew he'd need to get decent grades.

Anna had been Chuck's best friend ever since they moved to Arcadia, because the little pocket rocket was every bit as brilliant as she was feisty, and she was into martial arts too, but while everyone thought that they'd been boyfriend and girlfriend since their early teens, this was just an act to cover up the fact that _Anna_ had a girlfriend, Jill. They and their other best friend, Lou, had experimented with sex when Anna and Lou's hormones were kicking in as they were moving into their teens (the girls didn't know that Chuck was two years younger than them), but Anna had found that while she loved Chuck and what he did to her felt great, she wasn't into him that way at all, as she found that it was girls that she was attracted to. When she tentatively broached the matter with their new friend Jill (because she was worried that she might disappear like Lou had), she was delighted to find that Jill felt the same way, but therein lay a different problem, because Anna was from a traditional Chinese family, while Jill was from a strict Christian family, so neither family would _ever_ accept their daughters being homosexuals! The faith issue would just add to the problem.

Anna came up with the solution to that problem one day when the girls were crying on his and Skip's shoulders about it in Chuck's room…. and Skip was commiserating with the girls, because he was in much the same position, being gay himself. _That_ made Anna suddenly sit up and look at Jill in Skip's arms, then turn to look up at Chuck with a hopeful expression. "Chuckles, you're the only one here who isn't gay, but we both know that there's only one girl for you. You know that I'll keep helping you look for her for as long as it takes, but until you _do_ find your Sammie, do you think…. is there any chance that you could pretend to be _my_ boyfriend in public? I'm sure that we won't have any problem convincing my family and everyone else that I'm your girlfriend because they think that already, so if Jill and Skippy can pull off the act too, no one should ever be able to work out that we aren't straight."

Chuck smiled, kissing her on the head and giving her a squeeze, then looked at the others. "What do you guys think? Can you pull off being boyfriend, girlfriend?"

Jill and Skip looked at each other and nodded eagerly before turning back to him and Skip answered. "Sure we can, but what about you Chuck? You're the only one who isn't getting anything out of this!"

Chuck shook his head with a smile. "Sure I am! Like Anna said, there's only one girl for me, so this way I get a pint sized pit bull to scare off any other girls who might decide that they want something from me. And besides, this one and you guys are my best friends, what kind of friend would I be if I didn't help you with this?"

Anna elbowed him for the 'pint sized pit bull' crack, but kissed him for doing this for them, and that was how it was up until they got to Stanford. There was a slight change when they got there though, because they were met by religious head cases up on their soap boxes, ranting about homosexuality being a sin _and_ all the jocks were leering at Jill. This was frightening Jill, so Anna asked Chuck if Jill could be his pretend girlfriend instead of her while they were there. He agreed because they wouldn't ever be doing anything more than kissing and cuddling to keep up the act in public anyway and he would still be protecting both of them, so he had himself a new 'girlfriend' at Stanford.

* * *

'Uncle' Jeff took their things up to Palo Alto for them in his 'work' van, because Chuck was driving the girls up in 'Anna's Lancer (even Jill didn't know that this was more Chuck's car than Anna's, because Anna was a part of their group before she met Jill, and she kept the secrets that were entrusted with her, even from her girlfriend. Anna's parents had agreed to buy her a car for when she went to university, but didn't argue when she took her American boyfriend and his Uncle John instead of her father to find the car she wanted, as they accepted that the two of them knew more about cars than he did. They had had a few words to say when she came back with the Lancer instead of the sensible little hatchback that she was supposed to buy, but it didn't cost them any more than the hatchback would have and they just put it down to her being influenced by her boyfriend. What they didn't realise was that the Lancer actually had a full works spec Evo IV drivetrain, brakes and suspension underneath it from Japan that cost many times what they paid for the car. The Lancer looked tame enough on the outside to be believable as a university student's car, but had enough performance to give them an effective getaway car for missions, because Chuck and Anna would still be working for Auntie Di while they were up at Stanford. Of course they had other cars at Moffett Field, but they never knew when they'd need to make a getaway, so having Anna's car set up that way made sense.)

Anna couldn't resist taking advantage of the fact that Chuck couldn't say too much in front of Jill, so she started pointing at the massive airship hangars and asking him what they were, and what this place was, as they were passing Moffett Field. She did feel a _little_ guilty about doing that to him, because she knew that he was already pissed off about the fact that they'd had to waste over six hours driving up from LA at legal speeds to just maintain the façade that they were normal students in front of Jill, when they had the Emerald City facility in there which had all the facilities they needed, including the ability to store any of the planes they would normally use for general transport. She also knew that he'd already confirmed that with the Yak, or any of their smaller jets for that matter, he could cut the trip time to under an hour door to door... And after all, it was _her_ girlfriend who had made all this play acting necessary, but it was just too much fun to wind Chuck up and they'd been doing this to each other since they were eleven.

As well as hauling their things up for them, Jeff was supposedly looking for a place to set himself up in Palo Alto, because he'd be staying up there to support Chuck, using a tech services business (Munchkin Technical Services, or MTS as it was usually known) to explain what he was doing there. 'Uncle' Jeff's name was actually Thomas Jefferson Barnes now, better known as the hacker Rosco (it had been Tom Baker up until Chuck caught him and he chose to start a new life with them). Given the fact that he was only offered two alternatives after Chuck uncovered his activities on government computer systems and tracked him down so that John could arrest him, work with Chuck, Anna and Skip on the cyber side of the Spectre group, or disappear into a black site somewhere, never to be seen again... well it hadn't been a hard choice for him to make. Having the chance to work with the Piranha and the Lotus (and to a lesser degree Skippy) was something Jeff wasn't likely to pass up anyway, because they were up there with the best in the game, which Chuck had proven by how easily he'd caught him because Rosco was one of the hacker elite too. Jeff had been part of their group for over two years now, and he still regarded being caught by Chuck as the best mistake he'd ever made.

* * *

The girls had more fun winding up Chuck about the fact that even without Skip coming to Stanford, he _still_ had a gay room mate, after they met Bryce when they helped him move into his room. That was aggravating, because he didn't need any more complications, but he wasn't too worried about Bryce because he knew that he'd be able to handle anything the guy may try, if he did. They had a bigger worry anyway, and that was probably why the girls were trying to wind him up, to get their minds off that.

While they were moving the girls' things into their dorm, they had heard lots of talk about girls getting raped in the dorms, especially girls who were thought to be lesbians. There were already girls packing up and going home because of those attacks, before classes had even started, and when Anna asked some of the girls what the campus police were doing about it, she was told "Nothing!".

This frightened Jill even more, so Chuck tried to calm her while they were helping him move into his room by telling her that Uncle Jeff was already looking for a place to live as he was thinking of moving up here for the business opportunities, so they'd just ask him to look for a bigger place and think up something to tell their parents (Anna of course knew the real story, so she followed Chuck's lead on this). That did calm Jill down a little, but they both begged him to stay with them that night so they'd feel safer. Anna smirked at him, with a subtle nod in his room mate's direction as she whispered. "Maybe _you'll_ feel safer that way too Chuckles."

He swatted her on the behind with a smile for that, but said that of course he'd stay with them, getting a kiss from Jill when she belatedly remembered that _she_ was supposed to be his girlfriend. They _had_ discussed the fact that him being as affectionate with Anna as he was with his 'girlfriend' much of the time would probably have many people thinking that it was actually a three way relationship, but agreed that that would serve their purposes better anyway, so they weren't worried if people saw.

With Chuck's skills, it wasn't difficult for him to slip into the girls' dorms and then Anna and Jill's room without being noticed later that night. The three of them had had so many sleepovers over the years that the girls had no compunctions about getting undressed and changed in front of Chuck, sure they knew he was straight, but they also knew that he was a perfect gentleman and that he'd spend the rest of his life if need be looking for the one who'd been taken out of his life when he was eight, they'd heard that story from the whole family and Anna had seen his anguish when he couldn't find any sign of Sammie. To Anna and Jill, Chuck and Skip were as good as one of the girls, so they just got ready for bed and settled down for the night after a round of good night hugs and kisses.

Chuck was alerted in the early hours of the morning by sounds out in the hall, so he leapt out of bed and woke the girls. Jill was terrified, because she couldn't see how they could fight off the packs of men she'd been told would be coming for them, but Chuck quickly swapped places with Anna when she spat out "Chuck, the girls were saying that they're targeting lesbians, so get in here with Jill and make it look like you're making out! Maybe that will make them leave us alone if they're really only attacking lesbians!" as she clambered out of bed. He was surprised when Jill ripped her top off and threw on the floor then fell on him in a heated make out session while Anna hopped into the other bed, but before he could say anything the door of their room burst open and at least half a dozen big, burly figures in ski masks rushed in.

As enthusiastic as Jill was being, Chuck didn't miss a word of what was said when they entered. From what they said, the ones in front were obviously in charge.

"Shit, I thought she said that they were dykes?"

"Who cares? Looks like the beanpole's warmed that one up for us, which one do ya wanna do first?"

"She looks ready, I'll take her and you can start with the Chink…."

At that point the clock radio that Chuck had grabbed from the bedside table cut off his words as it smashed into his face, the heavy base of the lamp took out the next guy and the vase the one after him. Then Chuck swept Jill off him and rolled out of bed, snatching up the solid wood chair that was sitting against the wall and using it on the others (because that would be easier to explain than talking them all out bare handed). They were all down in under thirty seconds, and the ones he took out with the chair were in by far the worst shape because they all had shattered arms, legs and ribs.

Chuck went to the nearest conscious one, yanking off his ski mask and grabbing him by the hair.

"Who's 'she'?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Your buddy said 'she' told you that the girls were dykes, who's 'she'?"

"Fuck you! I'm not telling you any….."

His words were lost in a scream as Chuck grabbed the spot where he'd shattered the guy's leg with the chair and squeezed.

When he stopped screaming, Chuck repeated the question. "Who. Is. She?"

The guy wasn't about to take any more of _that_ , so he frantically pointed out the door. " _HER! HER!_ "

Chuck turned to see a severe looking young woman with a worried expression (because this obviously hadn't gone the way it was supposed to) standing there, fully dressed at two in the morning when everyone else was in their sleepwear. When she saw him turn to look at her she tried to run but the other girls crowding around the door had heard what the would-be rapist said too and grabbed her. They'd heard quite enough for there to be no doubt in their minds that this bitch had been setting girls up to be raped just because she didn't approve of what she _thought_ their life choices were. They didn't see that girl being a lesbian, not with the way she and her boyfriend were almost naked and had obviously been going at, and they knew for a fact that some of the other girls who'd been raped weren't either, but whether they were or not was immaterial, that bitch had been setting other girls up to be gang raped, and some of those girls had been their friends, so there was no way that they were letting her get away!

He knew that someone would have called the campus police by now, but Chuck didn't trust them at all, so he called Auntie Di, telling her what happened and she told him to try and stall until she could get an FBI team there. Luckily it was almost time for her to be getting up in DC (the price of success, she'd had to move to DC within a year of the Spectre group being established because that was where most of the government bodies who engaged the group were located, so she had to be there for meetings with them all the time, which _seriously_ cut into the amount of time she got to spend with with Josie, even racking up ten thousand flight miles a week she was only getting to see her twice a week), so she was wide awake as soon as the phone rang.

With that, Chuck went back to the girls, Jill had her top back on and Anna was comforting her. As he walked up, Jill stepped forward to embrace him and he kissed her, whispering in her ear "Remember, I'm your boyfriend." She nodded and kissed him, and then he reached out to pull Anna into the embrace, kissing her on the forehead, whispering "And you were in your own bed if anyone asks." Anna nodded, hugging him and kissing him in the cheek too.

By the time the campus police arrived, Chuck had gotten dressed to cover up his scars and some of the girls who'd been raped had come in and said that they were sure that these were the bastards who'd raped them, while others identified the would-be rapists as all being on the university's football team after their ski masks were pulled off.

Things went pretty much as Chuck expected with the campus police, as they just said that these boys had only been playing around on a harmless panty raid and tried to drag Chuck out, telling him that _he_ was facing multiple counts of grievous bodily harm, attempted murder, unprovoked assault and anything else they could think of. At that the other girls pushed their way into the room and started shouting at them about all the rapes that had been occurring but the campus cops just kept saying that there was no evidence that any of these boys had had anything to do with those and threatened them to try and get them out of the way.

This bickering was enough to keep the campus cops tied up for the short time it took the 'FBI' to arrive, and Chuck smiled in relief to see John, Bai and Uncle Bry walk in with some of the guys from the support team (they would be maintaining a rotating support team of a dozen or so at Moffett Field while Chuck and Anna were at Stanford). Auntie Di must have had John, Bai and Uncle Bry waiting with the team there in case of trouble, but whatever the reason he was just glad to see them. Chuck wasn't sure why John was putting on a southern accent, but it was hard not to laugh as he drawled "Y'all better check yourself there boy! Did your Mama hit you with the stupid stick or somethin'? Tryin' to tell the _FBI_ that we don't have no authority here?" when that jumped up security guard tried to tell them to get out because the campus police had this under control.

With the proper authorities there, the other girls started shouting about the rapes that had been going on and how this bitch had been setting girls up to be raped and the campus cops had been sweeping it all under the carpet. Casey's expression turned very grim at that and he brusquely told the campus cops to get out, but wait outside the building, because he'd be real angry if they made him track them down, that was all it took to make them scamper out the door. John sent one of the support guys after them to make sure they did as he said.

The would-be rapists were taken to hospital to be treated and were kept there under guard, being questioned and having samples being taken from them for DNA tests, and the woman who'd sent them to Anna and Jill's room was taken into custody and questioned too. The next day samples were taken from the rest of their team and they were questioned as well, along with the other university teams. Some of the players tried to argue, but they buckled very quickly when faced with a very angry John Casey and Bryan Mills (both of whom had daughters who would be going to university themselves in ten years or so).

It took a couple of months for the real police (with the FBI and Spectre group's help) to root out everyone who'd been involved in the rapes themselves and setting girls up to be raped, and more than a few people around the university were complaining and threatening retribution because quite a number of the university's first string players ended up in jail as a result of the investigation (how dare those bitches destroy their football prospects with their lies, because those boys had only been having a bit of harmless fun?), along with a number of the religious fanatics who'd been setting girls up to be raped. A number of others (including many of the campus police and the ones making threats) who they didn't have enough evidence on to make criminal charges stick but were obviously guilty as sin were permanently banished from the university as the university tried to clean up its seriously tarnished image. The women of the university felt a little safer after that, but those bastards hadn't been the only predators on the campus so they still had to be careful, and for that matter most of the anti-homo crowd were still there too.

It hadn't taken long for them to supposedly get the purchase of a house through (seeing as it had been done before they got there), and get a $3.6 Million settlement out of the university for fostering an culture of rapes, hate crimes and corrupt campus police who were covering those crimes up, and to have very public charges of false arrest and defamation of character against the Chancellor dropped to officially pay for it. They had only asked for a quarter of that originally, but they played the university officials like fish and Roan (as Auntie Em's cousin by marriage and their family lawyer Bernard Larouche, and himself actually, as that was who and what he'd officially been before he joined the CIA) gleefully doubled it as planned because of the threats and abuse being hurled at them, and thanked them for upping his fee for him.

When one of the university officials spitefully said that Chuck's scholarship should be taken off him and given to someone who really needed it, Roan's smile lit up the room as he said. "Thank you! That was ample grounds for us to double the settlement, and therefore my fee, _again_!" because _that_ was a bonus. Needless to say, the Chancellor shut up the idiot who'd threatened that quick smart and got him out of there before he could cost the university any more money. While they had them on the ropes, they got the Chancellor to officially waive the pre-requisites and have both Chuck and Anna admitted into Stanford's MBA program, effective immediately, seeing as he 'now' had the money to pay for it. The Chancellor tried to save face by pointing out to the other officials that at least the university would be getting some of that money back this way, but no-one was swallowing it.

The house they set up just off campus had taken them a while to find because they'd had very specific requirements, but the one they found had exceeded their requirements. It was close enough to the University to walk there easily and it had four bedrooms and a study inside, plus a separate two bedroom apartment for Chuck above the garage (which was wide enough to take up to three cars side by side, and quite deep enough to fit more cars in behind them when the others came over). They didn't have a bunker at the house, because it would be too hard to hide with Jill living there and the house would be sold again once Chuck finished at Stanford, and they already had a bunker with all the facilities under their hangar at Moffett Field.

Anna and Jill shared one room at the house of course, but Anna kept most of her things in one of the spare bedrooms that were kept for John, Uncle Bry or the others' use when they were in town for a while, just in case her or Jill's parents came up to see them. Their living off campus had easily been explained away by the attack in their dorm room. They told their parents that they'd asked Chuck to stay with them that night because they were frightened, with good reason obviously, after hearing about those other girls being raped, and Chuck had gotten a false arrest settlement that was big enough to pay for the house. His uncle being there was explained as him having seen that there weren't many tech services companies in Palo Alto when he helped them move up there, so he'd moved up there to try and get a slab of the services market while it was wide open, and the girls felt safer, having someone they knew and trusted in the house with them after they were attacked like that.

* * *

The fact that he'd gotten four times as much as they'd supposedly planned (it was still twice what they'd really planned for) from the university gave Chuck the excuse to spend some money on something fun, a bike (actually six bikes, but four of the other five were normally kept in their hangar at Moffett Field and everyone presumed that they belonged to John or Uncle Bry when they rode them over, the last one was kept in their hangar in El Monte). The six Harleys all had the same core setup, big bore RB Racing ORCA TC126 mills with their fuel injection, engine management and 2 into 1 exhaust setups, RBR's chain drive conversion swingarms, and uprated brakes and suspension. While the core setup was the same though, Chuck's bike had extras like nitrous oxide and such that pushed it further than the ones that John, Jeff and Bry normally used. They all looked like the sort of thing that guys put together in their garage (as even up there they had to pay lip service to their cover life), and in truth Chuck had done a fair bit of the work himself (with John's help strangely enough, wrenching on the bikes together in the garage was probably the closest they'd ever come to bonding off mission), but he'd also spent well over a hundred thousand on parts from RBR to get them to the point where they could have some serious fun with them.

Unfortunately, the terms of the settlement from the university meant that Chuck had to officially stay with the allocated housing for appearances sake because he'd kept his scholarship, so he tried to get Bryce to cover for him, using the argument that Jill's family were strict Christians so they'd go ballistic if they knew that she was sleeping with him. For all his other shortcomings though, Larkin was right up there when it came to manipulation and blackmail, so the deal Chuck had to agree to to get him to cover up the fact that he was supposedly staying in his good Christian girlfriend's room (luckily Larkin was too lazy to check and didn't know that Anna and Jill moved out of the dorms a few weeks after that) most nights was that he spend several hours a week helping him keep up his grades. At first he demanded that Chuck stay in their room at least one or two nights a week and came around at least two other nights to help him. When Chuck shot that down, saying that Jill got frightened if he wasn't there to protect her at night, he changed that to at least four or five visits of at least an hour a week to help him. Chuck agreed to that, because he'd be sticking to the letter of those terms, four visits of no more than one hour each week, at times that suited _him_ , because that way people would see him enough to accept he was staying there. But he'd be staying at the house unless he absolutely _had_ to make an appearance in the dorms because he wasn't going to spend a minute more than he had to around that slug!

* * *

Chuck had always steered clear of the over-privileged trust fund jocks like Larkin back at High School, so he'd never really seen how they just expected to get everything they wanted as their due. That was why he couldn't understand how Larkin could straight out blackmail him when he asked him to cover for him staying with his girlfriend who'd been traumatised by being attacked in her dorm room, and then act as if he was doing him a favour by holding up his side of the deal.

Unfortunately, Chuck had his mother's temper and he was having a hard time holding it in as he stormed out of 'their' room to go see the girls less than a week after Larkin first blackmailed him. Anna had seen him like this often enough before though and knew that he had to do something to let off steam or he'd blow, so she didn't ask any questions when he asked to borrow 'her' car, she just handed him the keys, asked him to be careful with a kiss and shut Jill up when she went to say something. She had to explain that tender kiss to her girlfriend after he left, but Chuck had been her best friend and anchor ever since she met him over six years ago, and in many ways he meant far more to her than her girlfriend of three years did. While she loved Jill and would hate to lose her, if she was forced to make to choose between her and Chuck, Chuck would win.

As part of that explanation, she drew Jill over to the window to watch him drive off. Luckily the street was deserted at that moment, because Jill watched in shock as the Lancer got up to at least a hundred miles an hour in the short distance it took to get out of sight. Once it was gone Anna sat her down to explain that as wonderful as Chuck was, he had one hell of a temper, and someone must have done something to make him really angry (she knew it had to be Larkin but didn't tell her that). She told her that Chuck was a drift racer, and a damned good one, but he was currently on probation so if he owned a car the cops would be all over him. When he was like this though, the only thing that could calm him down was to take a fast car up into the hills and let off steam (or a mission, but she wasn't going into _that,_ because for all her intelligence, Jill was too much of a ditzy valley girl to trust with their secrets). That was why she'd gotten the Lancer and let him modify it before they came to Stanford, so he would be able to let off steam up here where he couldn't borrow Ellie's Summit. She nodded at the look Jill gave her at that. "Yeah, Ellie let him modify her car too so that he could let of steam when he needed to, mind you we've had a lot of fun with it too because that little car of her's is damned fast now, and so is my Lancer as you just saw. Auntie Mary and Auntie Em look the other way and pretend that they don't know about the cars or Chuck's racing because they know he's good enough not to endanger others."

Jill was still dubious about that kiss, but accepted Anna's promise that there wasn't anything like that going on between her and Chuck. Anna conceded that they _had_ had sex before she met her, but that was what convinced her that she wasn't into guys, because she knew that if it didn't work with _him_ , it wouldn't work with _any_ guy. She also admitted that she'd experimented with the other girl in their group back then too, but she and her family had up and left town, left the country actually, straight after that, which was why she'd been so tentative with her at first.

* * *

That incident helped them keep their other activities under wraps actually, because Chuck was also doing degrees at MIT by distance learning as Charles Carmichael, and he had to be in attendance at MIT sometimes for sessions and exams. He needed to get across the country to Boston and back whenever that happened (They'd also gotten a hangar at Naval Air Station South Weymouth transferred to the group when Ellie started her first degree at Harvard in Ninety Two to give them somewhere to keep their cars, and the jets when they flew over. The members of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission couldn't work out why Major Beckman seemed to be the only officer in the United States Military who actually thanked them for their efforts, but the fact was they'd made things a lot simpler to get facilities transferred to them, especially Navy facilities, because the Navy used any part of their listed facilities that they'd officially transferred to other parts of the government as justification to keep what they were fighting for, so Di didn't have to work hard at all to get hangars etc in Naval facilities allocated to them.), and had to use supersonic jets to be able to do that quick enough, so they often used the letting off steam excuse to explain the times he took off in the Lancer or on his Harley for a while. They also used that excuse sometimes when he had missions, though they needed to come up with a better story for the times that Anna was part of the mission, and for the times when Auntie Di scheduled flights for her to get the flight hours up to keep her aircraft certifications valid (they'd all become Naval Aviators, Air Force Pilots, Army Aviators and Marine Naval Aviators to get qualified on the different aircraft each service had, but this meant that they had to get enough flight hours in each class of aircraft to maintain their aircraft certifications, and that added up to a lot of flight time that they had to sneak in without outsiders like Jill finding out about it). Auntie Di would never admit it, but she _was_ grateful that they'd acquired those Super Tigers at the end of Ninety Six because the F-106Bs that they'd acquired from the AMARC and upgraded with better and more modern engines and systems and bigger tanks in Ninety had been questioned too much because the F-106s were officially retired. People asked questions about the Super Tigers too, but they could be explained away as being part of an on-going research and development program, whereas everyone knew that the F-106s had been shut down.

At least all they had to come up with to explain why Anna spent so much time working with Chuck and Jeff in Chuck's apartment where they had the computers set up was that Chuck had used what little was left over from his settlement after they bought the house and upgraded their computers to buy his Harley and Jeff's tech services business was slow taking off, so they needed to do 'other' jobs to pay the bills and Anna was working with them to pay her and Jill's share. They'd used the story that Chuck, Anna and Skip were making extra money 'hacking for profit' when Jill came into the group (Anna, Skip and Lou had been Middle School's resident nerds when Chuck first arrived in Arcadia and they clicked with him pretty much straight away, but they'd wanted in when he tried to stop their questions about the work he was doing by saying that he was just making a bit of extra money by doing hacking jobs for people his uncle knew. Being as bright as they were, Anna and Lou soon worked out what the family _really_ did from what they were working on and Skip didn't take much longer, which led to them being formally accepted into the Spectre group, working with Chuck, in their early teens), and the story line was that they'd always worked together at Chuck's house because his family never asked what they were doing in his room, so it was easy enough to spin this as just an extension of that. The fact that Jill could never understand their 'techno-babble' as she called it and usually didn't hang around when they started talking that way had always made it easier to cover up what they were actually doing.

While Skip, and Jeff when he took the option to join them, were very much a part of the cyber and to a lesser degree analysis side of the group though, they didn't get into the physical side of what they did the way that Anna had. As soon as she found out that Chuck and Ellie were into martial arts too, she wanted to be part of what they were doing, and even if she wasn't quite up to their standard she _was_ good enough to keep up, so they gave in and got her included in the special operations and operative and flight training that Chuck and Ellie were getting. Between them, Mary, Sue, Bry, Buck, Mike, Roan and John gave Skip and Jeff enough combat and weapons training to make sure that they could look after themselves and they learned how to handle all the vehicles that the group used... They were even made Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force pilots to fly the planes and helicopters the group commonly used and were certified on them, but they didn't go into the more serious training and rarely did any more than provide field support on missions. Skip's workload and responsibilities had expanded a little after Chuck, Anna and Jeff went up to Palo Alto though because he was the only one they had left in Los Angeles on the cyber and tech support side.

* * *

Larkin was bright enough to see that what Chuck did to stop the dorm rapes when he first came to Stanford had made him well liked and respected among the female and gay friendly parts of the university population, so while he didn't let him out of his part of the deal that he'd blackmailed him into, he _did_ throw himself into playing the role of Chuck's bestie who he shared a room with most of the time, and made a point of dragging Chuck and his girlfriend and gal pal into the nerdier groups on campus with him. While the idea of being Bryce Larkin's bestie turned Chuck's stomach, this act _did_ help shore up the stupid cover life he was being forced to live with, so he played along in public, and most of the time he was alone with Larkin too (luckily Larkin's narcissism was strong enough for him to swallow the act, and the times that Chuck couldn't keep it up, he just put it down to being out of sorts because of his hormonal girlfriend because someone like Larkin never took the time to understand women's issues, so he took that at face value).

The benefit of this charade was that Chuck could live at the house with Jeff, Anna and Jill nearly all the time, which in turn meant that he was free to go back to putting in at least six or seven hours' work a night (both he and Ellie had inherited their mother's trait of rarely needing more than an hour or two's sleep a night as well as her eidetic memory, so working twenty or more hours a day wasn't too difficult for them), and this helped them catch up on the group's backlog of work fairly quickly.

Hacking into the phone and power companies' systems to cover up the unusually heavy phone and power usage for a household of four people was child's play for Chuck (literally, he'd only been eight when he first did it for their house in Arcadia), and it meant that he, Mom and Ellie could be continuously connected by phone and computer while they worked together through the night. They'd usually have Auntie Di and Auntie Em (and Jeff, Anna and Skip) on as well for a few hours a night up until Auntie Di dropped off to go to bed, and then she would come back on a few hours after Auntie Em and the others dropped off when she got up in the morning in Washington. While working this hard would have wiped out 'ordinary humans' as Auntie Em liked to say (mainly because it pissed off Mom), it wasn't really a problem for them (the Terminators as she called them, usually misquoting the movie after she'd had a few drinks 'The Terminators can't be reasoned with, they can't be bargained with… and they absolutely will not stop. Ever!', which Mom and Ellie said just proved that she spent _way_ too much time watching those silly movies with Chuck).

As gruelling as those hours were, it was the only way they could keep up with the workloads that Auntie Di threw at them to ensure that the Spectre group stayed at the top of the heap in the intelligence community. As the whole family knew though, Chuck's top priority was the search for Sammie, it was the first thing he looked at when he got up and the last thing he checked before he went to bed. If for some reason he wasn't at home, he'd call either the house in Palo Alto or Arcadia or one of their control centres to get them to check for any new hits.

All in all, this setup worked quite well for them, Chuck, Ellie, Anna and Skip were doing well in their degrees at Stanford, MIT, Harvard, UCLA and Caltech, the Spectre group was staying on top of the intelligence game, and he and sometimes Ellie and Anna were going with Uncle Bry, Mom, Uncle Roan and John on special ops and intelligence operations with the SEALs, Special Forces, Marine Recon, Rangers, DIA, FBI, CIA, ATF, US Marshals, DEA and Coast Guard. While wearing, it made for an exciting and rewarding life most of the time.

* * *

Meanwhile, down in San Diego, the person who Chuck, Emma and the rest of the family had been searching for for nearly eight years put her foot down. Sammie (or rather Jenny Burton as she was at that point) was fifteen in July Ninety Seven, but all of her records said that she was seventeen and she had no trouble convincing anyone of that. After nearly eight years of being dragged through nearly every sleazy hole in the country, and more than a few over the border…. being chased, propositioned, fondled, felt up and nearly raped more times than she wanted to think about by dirty old and not so old men... and especially that incident in May where she'd had to fight off that group of bikers who were intent on gang raping her in one of the dives her father took her to... she'd given him an ultimatum….. Either give up the con game, go straight and stay in one place long enough for her to complete her final year of high school to get the education credits she'd need to go to university, or they'd be going their separate ways then and there!

Uncle Joe (or Jack Burton as he now was) had no doubt that his daughter could find some nice family who'd happily take her in for a year to do as she wished, because even though he'd never admit it out loud, she was far better than he ever was, she could make people do just about anything she wanted. But that was why he couldn't afford to let her go, he'd never make a fraction of what they did without her planning the gigs and handling the marks the way she did, and he'd most probably be in the pen within a few months as well, so he swore blind that he'd do as she asked without blinking an eye.

Of course, Jack had no intention of honouring that promise, he just said that to stall for time and stop her leaving. Jenny knew that, but even if she was one of the few women on the planet who was totally immune to her father's charms, she couldn't help hoping that just this once, he'd do as he promised.

* * *

Jenny Burton wasn't having a good time in San Diego, she'd wanted to fly under the radar for this final year of high school, and also dissuade her father from trying to talk her into 'just one quick job', so she totally changed her look before she enrolled at the school. She got god-awful braces put on her teeth (real ones, which couldn't be removed without a dentist), just about ruined her hair making it look terrible and threw out any nice clothes she had to get the dorky band geek look locked in. The way she saw it, if she was hidden away among the nerds, she'd be ignored by the popular crowd, and her final results when she came out on top when they graduated (as she fully intended to do, to get her best shot at university), it would be less of a surprise too.

The problem was that that didn't work out the way she planned. She fitted in with the overachieving nerds fine (Mama, Charlie, Nora and Uncle Stefan had prepared her well for that and it sometimes made her homesick when she was with the nerds), and she was near the top of all her classes from the start without much effort, but the popular crowd didn't ignore her the way she'd planned, they made sure that they made her life hell. That bitch Heather Chandler was behind it, but they all bought into it, especially that pig Dick Duffy!

She was pretty sure she knew what Chandler's game was, because while she was a horrendous bitch and slag, she was actually fairly smart, so she was almost certainly trying to set it up so that she got the number one spot and got to be valedictorian _without_ having to work hard for them. Jenny could see her prodding that pig Duffy into harassing her, and quite likely if that didn't work raping her as well, so that she'd leave the school, which would of course leave the way clear for _her_ because none of the other smart girls would risk getting in her way after they saw what happened to Jenny.

It wouldn't be hard for Chandler to get Duffy to do something like that either because it was just the sort of thing he'd do if he thought of it, if he could think... She really couldn't understand how he'd made it onto the football team, because he was so dumb she was surprised that he could run without tripping over his feet, or more likely his tongue as soon as he saw a girl in a tight shirt or a short skirt. That was one thing she was glad of with her current look, all her clothes were so baggy you could hardly tell there was a girl under them so most of the jocks ignored her, but that wouldn't stop Duffy once Chandler wound him up, he'd go after old Missus Smith in the lunch shop if Chandler got him wound up and asked him to.

She wasn't worried about being able to stop Duffy, between her natural ability, what Auntie Mary and Auntie Sue had taught her as a kid and what she'd gotten others to teach her over the last eight years she could handle him easily, but she doubted that she'd be able to do so without anyone seeing it, and she doubted that she'd be able to stop herself from permanently damaging him when it got to that because the pig made her so angry, and either of those things would put a black mark on her record and probably draw the cops' attention. That would probably be enough to ruin her plans of getting into university, because she expected that her father would have spent all the money they'd made before they came to San Diego so she would need a scholarship to get into university and with only one year to do it, she'd need to stay squeaky clean to get one.

* * *

Jenny was handling the situation fairly well, she'd backed off enough to make it look like she wasn't at the top any more unless you knew about everything else she was doing behind the scenes, and a little gentle persuasion with the teachers ' _Please_ don't tell the others, they're so mean to me when they get jealous!' was enough to keep all that under wraps. Chandler looked smug when she thought that she'd scared her enough to take herself out of contention, but at least she'd stopped prodding Duffy to go after her so that was working. Then, just as the end was in sight, with only two months left to graduation, her father screwed her over!

Her internal dialogue as she drove past their house with hardly a pause after she saw all the ATF and over government cars outside was brutal. 'You didn't _really_ expect him to keep his promise did you? Idiot! You were fuckin' stupid to ever give him the chance to screw you over like this! You should have just left without a word, you know he wouldn't have been able to find you if you'd done that!'

This went on until she reached the first of the spots where she was hoping to find at least one of their emergency money caches, if her father hadn't cleaned the last of them out yet she'd collect whatever was left and do what she should have done last July, find herself a decent family and set it up so that she could stay with them until she finished high school. She was surprised to find that the money _was_ still there, but just as she was about to take it and go she heard a noise.

She spun and threw the knife she'd just used to open the box the cache was buried in with one smooth motion, but the moment she saw who was standing there, she regretted trying to scare the man off rather than kill him, because it was Mister Graham, the one who'd been Uncle Stefan and Auntie Mary's Boss, and Mama's too sometimes from what she heard Mama saying to them when she was supposedly asleep.

From the way Graham was talking, he obviously didn't think that she'd recognise him, which presumably meant that he didn't know that she'd acquired Mama's eidetic memory... or possibly that he didn't know that _Mama_ had one for that matter. Unfortunately, Graham was bright enough to realise that his goading wasn't working and cut to the chase, she was going to work for him because he had her father and he'd make sure he suffered if she didn't do exactly as he said.

Once again, he read more than she wanted from her reaction, because he saw that the idea of her father suffering didn't bother her that much so he upped the ante. "If you don't care what happens to your father, what about your mother? We've had her and the Jaworskis somewhere they won't escape since your father took you away and we caught her trying to go after you! Didn't you ever think to wonder why you couldn't find them? Unlike your father, we need to keep your mother in good enough shape to work, but there are plenty of other ways to punish her that won't effect her ability to work!"

The smug, self satisfied smile on his face said that he knew he had her then, and he proceeded to tell her exactly what she was going to do. She was going to go back to the house and she'd be staying there with CIA handlers until she graduated, _as valedictorian_. She'd be going to one of the Ivy League universities back east…. " _Harvard_ , I think!" and she'd do damned well there or her mother would pay. As well as her academic requirements, the handlers she'd have up until she graduated... _as valedictorian_... would be getting her prepared for the three month intensive boot camp she would be doing between her high school graduation and starting at Harvard. She'd have another handler at Harvard, and she'd meet every target she was given in her extra curricular training as well or her mother would pay…

When he finished he looked at her. "Do you understand what is required of you or do I need to use your father to convince you? I realise that your mother is a better incentive but I don't have her right here like I do your father."

He just smiled again as she bit out "Yes, I understand!" because he could see that she desperately wanted to kill him... and from what he'd seen from that incident last May she might have a good shot at that... but she was too afraid of anything happening to her mother to risk it.

Just to twist the knife a little more, Graham buried any official mention of Jack Burton's arrest and conviction, but made sure that word got around town about it so that the popular crowd would make the rest of her time in high school a living hell, as well as making sure that her handlers made her life a living hell at home. She was working harder than she ever had before to try and keep Mama safe, but she was worried about what Graham's retribution would be after she put the male handler through the door when he came into the bathroom while she was having a shower and tried to attack her, he was just replaced though and Graham didn't say a word about it. At least the female handler actually looked as though she felt a little guilty about letting the bathroom incident happen and backed off on her a little.

Jenny did derive some small satisfaction from the reactions of Chandler and the rest of the popular crowd when she swept the floor with them, topping every class to become valedictorian, and the independent auditor their parents insisted on bringing in to expose her cheating couldn't find anything to dispel the evidence that their children were obviously inferior to her. Unfortunately she got a phone call from Graham just before she went on stage to remind her what would happen if she gave the speech that she wanted to, so she just gave a short cookie cutter speech and walked off the stage.

She was immediately hustled into a car and driven straight to the airport to be put on a plane to Virginia, where she spent the next three months getting into shape and learning all the core tools of the trade for a spy (though that went much further than they'd expected because she already knew quite a bit of the subject matter, and mastered what she didn't faster than any other recruits could too, so she was well into the advanced operatives' subjects by the time she went to Harvard), and was given a total makeover to make her into this 'Sarah Walker' who Graham had told her she was going to be from now on when he caught her. It was obvious that Graham wasn't pleased when he saw that the new look they'd come up with was actually a slightly older version of the real her, because it was plain to see he'd wanted to force her to turn into someone else to make it easier to control her, but he had to accept that forcing them to make permanent changes to her appearance when Samantha Blake's (her _real_ name was Samara Liisa Burdon, her Mama never married her father and called her Samara but Auntie Mary and Auntie Di had the records set up to show that they _were_ married and her _official_ birth certificate said she was Samantha Lisa Blake) true look would ultimately serve him better would be counter productive, so he just turned and walked out. Sarah knew that he'd find some way to make her pay for the triumphant smile she couldn't hold in at that moment, she just hoped that he wouldn't take it out on Mama.

 **A/N: The actresses who played General Beckman and Sarah's mother in the series are both about the same height and have similar features, so disbelief shouldn't need to be suspended _too_ much to believe that they could be sisters. ;^**

 **NB: The actual Terminator quote was "Listen. Understand. That Terminator is out there. It can't be reasoned with, it can't be bargained with...it doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear...and it absolutely will not stop. Ever. Until you are dead."**


	2. School Daze

****Yeah, I know that people will be screaming about something in this chapter, all I can say is that it's the most sympathetic depiction of him you'll find in one of my stories, ;^)****

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney princess tale. There will probably be changes over the first hour or so as I always seem to find that I don't like the way some things look _after_ I've posted the chapter.  
**

* * *

The family were forcefully reminded of the fact that Chuck had Mary's temper when he came home at the end of his second year at Stanford, because he exploded one night as he was going back over the full results of the searches he'd been running for Sammie, trying to find something he'd missed. For all the danger of dealing with him when he was in this state, Ellie was in his room almost before the remains of the cup he'd thrown across the room hit the floor. Unfortunately she couldn't decipher what it was on the computer screen that had set him off, so she had to wait for him to calm down enough to explain it her. When he did, she turned to look at Auntie Em, and that look was enough to have Auntie Em with them at the screen in seconds.

What Chuck had found was, for want of a better description, a _hole_ in the results of his searches for Sammie. His search engines had discovered the indicators that Chuck had coded them for, but there was nothing there, as if all the information had been carefully removed. When he saw that he started digging deeper, and even for him, looking for what isn't there was difficult, but eventually he worked out what had been removed. Back in April, an inept conman by the name of Jack Burton had gotten himself caught by the authorities running a scam down in San Diego, but it wasn't the local cops who caught him, it had supposedly been a federal agency operation. This was what convinced Chuck that he was on the right track, because Uncle Joe had always been lazy, so nearly every identity that they'd found for him in the last nine years had had the same initials, JB. Then there was the fact that people had been talking about him being taken by the ATF and FBI, but there was nothing in their systems about it _and_ the man had supposedly had an eighteen year old daughter who mysteriously disappeared straight after she gave her high school valedictorian speech.

Chuck was sure that this was Uncle Joe, and more importantly Sammie, but the big questions were how did they both disappear, _separately_ , and why was there _nothing_ in the ATF and FBI records. Unfortunately he was pretty sure he knew the answer to that last question, and that didn't bode well, because everything was pointing to the CIA. He got into the CIA's systems without too much trouble (as if they could keep the Piranha out!), but he couldn't find any references to Sammie or the arrest there either, so he looked for Uncle Joe in the most obvious place for him to be if he was still alive, the prison systems, and at last he found something.

Auntie Di's point that him going in there to rip the answers and/or throat out of Uncle Joe wouldn't help them, and worse, it would just tip off whoever it was who had Sammie, _her niece!_ that someone was searching for her was valid if not tactful, so Chuck backed down and conceded that John, as the only one they had in the country that the CIA wasn't hunting for and the most likely to keep his temper was probably a better choice, then he all but threw John out the door to go and do it.

Unfortunately, when John went in as an FBI Agent to question Jack Burton in prison, he didn't get any useful information out of him, and _he_ almost lost his temper with the douche. They'd told him that Joe Blake didn't give a shit about anything or anyone but himself, but John was still shocked when Jack made it quite clear that he neither knew nor cared what had happened to his supposedly eighteen year old daughter after that Feeb grabbed her when she went to get the emergency cash buried just outside town that he told the Feeb about, his only agenda was finding a way to get himself out of there! In the end, John just got up and left before he killed the bastard and tipped off the CIA, exactly what the Colonel had been trying to avoid when she sent him in to talk to the douche.

Seeing the hope fade from Chuck's face when he told them what he'd gotten from Burton almost made him go back and kill the bastard anyway.

* * *

Once she got to Harvard, Sarah didn't have any time for anything but work, because even with her combining Law and Business Management majors with the joint JD/MBA degrees, she still had the heavy language major where she was doing three to four times the required number of units on top of that, and her extra curricular studies and training workload was even higher than her official workload was. That didn't bother her so much though, because throwing herself into the work like that gave her less time to worry about Mama. What _did_ bother her was her handler, because although the man's cover was as her father, she knew from the way he was always watching her and touching her that it would only be a matter of time before he tried something.

That time came when the university broke for Christmas. Sarah was due to head off early the next morning for another intensive training session over the break (after all, she had no family or anyone else to see, so she had no reason to stop working, and even if she did, they owned her arse), but she was woken in the middle of the night by him jumping on top of her and tearing at the tank top and boy shorts she was sleeping in. In a straight fight she could have disabled him easily, but he was over twice her weight and was using that advantage to pin her down as he ripped off her boy shorts, so she was forced to use more drastic measures and she killed the bastard. After she called it in she got dressed, and then started shaking, because she was terrified of what Graham would do to Mama for this.

When Graham arrived though, he just looked at the corpse with disdain then turned to her. "This won't be a problem with your new handler, but if you ever do this on a mission there will be serious ramifications! I don't think I need to tell you what that means, do I?" Sarah shook her head, terrified for her Mama, and he nodded and walked out.

They cancelled the planned Christmas training sessions because the spin doctors had to stage the scene whereby she called an ambulance for her 'father' who had had a heart attack, but the paramedics were unable to resuscitate him so he was pronounced dead on the scene. They took his body 'home' for the funeral, but when she came back she had her Aunt Jane come to stay with her. Aunt Jane was her mother's sister-in-law and a widow, so she and the family had agreed that she would be the best one to look after Sarah now that her Daddy was gone.

Sarah had to agree that it _was_ better, not having to worry about being attacked every time she turned her back on her handler, but there were other issues with this Jane Bentley. Jane made it quite clear from the start that she regarded this babysitting assignment as an insult to her ability and record, and told her that she'd only agreed to take it because Deputy Director Graham had promised her a much better position as soon as she'd graduated from Harvard and was accepted as a full agent, ultimately the Deputy Director of Operations' position. She also pointed out that as what she wanted was purely conditional on Sarah achieving everything expected of her, she would be pushing her harder than she'd ever been pushed before to make sure that she did!

For all her hard arsed approach though, Sarah learned more from Jane than she would have from anyone else, as she'd been a very accomplished operative and she knew what worked in the real world and what was just fluff. She also knew most of the pitfalls that were waiting out there for operatives, _especially_ female operatives. When Sarah told her what had happened with her first handler and that she was still a virgin, Jane was quite emphatic when she told her to make sure she lost her virginity on her own terms, to go out and find some nice boy to have her first time with, or even better find nice boys to have her first _few_ times with, so that her memory of her first time wasn't of some disgusting pig that she was forced to submit to. Sarah couldn't bring herself to ask the question on her lips but after a while Jane nodded.

"Yes, I _am_ talking from personal experience Sarah, _my_ first time was when I was at university... I'm pretty sure I was set up by the bitches from the sorority I was pledging for, but people kept feeding me drinks at a frat party until I was too drunk to stand and then someone took me upstairs, I'm pretty sure that at least five or six of them had had me by the time some of my girlfriends found me and managed to get me out of there. The next time was after I'd started as an agent though, and my memories of that pig are even worse than that frat party because I wasn't off my face that time, so yes Sarah, please believe me when I tell you that you want your first few times to be on your own terms so you aren't forced to live with those types of memories whenever you think of sex."

Sarah cried in earnest for the first time since she was a little girl after hearing Jane's story, but even though she knew that it was good advice, she still had to get herself a little drunk before she could go through with it when she found a nice boy at a party a couple of months before her seventeenth birthday (her real seventeenth birthday that is, because she was supposedly eighteen going on nineteen). And even though it didn't effect her quite so much afterwards the second time, she couldn't help wishing that the face she saw when she opened her eyes was Charlie's, because that was how she'd gotten herself through it, closing her eyes and pretending that it was Charlie.

She _was_ grateful that she'd taken Jane's advice when she was sent back to the Farm for part of the three months until her second year at Harvard started though, because Graham forced her to go through some very specific 'training' there that was so bad he'd had to threaten to have it done to her Mama in her place before she gave in and went through with it, and the idea of remembering _that_ filth every time she time she thought about sex horrified her. Having regrets that her first time wasn't with who she wanted it to be with was bad enough, being that disgusted every time she thought about the subject would have been so much worse.

* * *

The unparalleled success and achievements of the Spectre group was what gave Auntie Di the pull she needed to give Ellie (and Chuck) an incredible experience for Ellie's twenty first birthday in February Nineteen Ninety Nine. They knew that she was up to something when she turned up at the house and told them all to put their Air Force dress uniforms on, so they weren't too surprised to find that they headed for Edwards Air Force Base once their J50 took off from El Monte. (It had to be Edwards as they wouldn't have needed to be in uniform to go to Red Mountain.)

They _were_ surprised when they landed at Edwards and saw the plane that was waiting for them though, because it was an SR-71! The SR-71 was of course the dream ride for pilots like them and they'd both made sure they qualified on all the SR-71 simulations at test pilot school, so Auntie Di knew that Ellie would love it. She also knew her god daughter well enough that she just smirked and showed her the flight orders when Ellie dragged her off to one side to beg her to find some way to set it up so that Chuck could get to fly it too, because she already had it set up for USAF Major Eleonore Carmichael to pilot the plane on the outbound leg to McConnell Air Force Base, and USAF Major Conrad Hunter would pilot it on the return leg to Edwards after refuelling. As the SR-71s were being retired in a couple of months, she'd also managed to get them authorisation to test the craft's limits on this flight. Ellie hugged her, in tears as she thanked her, for knowing that she'd want Chuck to share in this as well as organising this incredible experience for her.

It was just as incredible as they'd expected it to be to take a plane to the edge of space and push it beyond Mach 3, and on the way back to Arcadia Auntie Di gave Ellie a framed certificate which recorded the fact that USAF Major Eleonore Carmichael had flown the SR-71 (AF Ser. No. 61-7980/NASA 844) at a recorded airspeed of Mach 3.36 with the time, coordinates and altitude of where that speed was logged, and gave Chuck a similar certificate saying that USAF Major Conrad Hunter had actually taken the same Blackbird to Mach 3. _56_ , with the details of when and where that was logged. Neither these nor the pictures of them in front of the SR-71 could be displayed where anyone outside the family could see them of course, so they went up on the wall in the bunker with all their other certificates and pictures that had to be hidden from the world.

* * *

Larkin had gotten even more demanding about Chuck helping him about half way through their second year, but while Chuck was tempted to tell him to shove it, he grudgingly accepted that the act that Larkin was putting on _was_ keeping the people monitoring him for the DIA's Cover Bureau off his back, so given that they _were_ still hiding from both Graham and Volkoff, he gave in to the douche's demands.

Things had been fairly quiet at Stanford up until nearly the end of Chuck, Anna and Jill's time there too, they had no problems staying ahead of their academic requirements and Chuck, Jeff and Anna were keeping on top of the workload from Auntie Di, working with Mary, Emma, Ellie and Skip in Arcadia. Chuck and Anna were helping Jeff with the on-going work and big jobs for MTS because that was the excuse for Jeff being there, and it also gave them a cover for their other work, and to go away on missions. Jeff sometimes came with Chuck when he flew down to Los Angeles on the weekend to see the family, and in particular his little sister, but Anna rarely managed to get away because she had to keep up the cover with her girlfriend. Luckily they had little trouble getting Jill and Larkin to accept the explanation that Chuck had fallen off his Harley to cover up for all the times he came back from missions injured. A couple of months before they were due to graduate in June 2000 though, their lives went pear shaped.

As Chuck found out when he investigated the matter, the roots of this actually went back to their second year, and in fact it was the reason that Larkin had suddenly gotten more demanding about Chuck helping him with his grades, because that was when Larkin was approached by the CIA's recruiter at Stanford, Professor Fleming.

The thing was, on paper, Larkin had looked perfect to Professor Fleming, good grades, athletic and good looking…. he had all the women on campus eating out of his hand, and he was ruthless and narcissistic enough to go for any proposal that resulted in _him_ getting what he wanted, and to make sure that he did. The problem, as Fleming found out _after_ he'd sent the gushing report about his wonderful new recruit up the line, was that Larkin wasn't what he looked like on paper… Oh he was good looking and athletic and had all the girls eating out of his hand all right, but he wasn't anywhere near as bright as his grades had made him out to be, and Fleming had been specifically placed here to recruit the brilliant kids that Stanford was famous for.

It turned out that that scholarship kid Larkin was rooming with, Bartowski, had a girlfriend from a strict Christian family, so Larkin had managed to blackmail him into coaching him when he asked him to cover up the fact that he was staying with her a lot of the time, to prevent her family finding out that she wasn't being the good girl they expected her to be. While Fleming gave Larkin points for the blackmail job, he wasn't about to risk _his_ reputation by sending up the male version of a dumb blonde bimbo, so he was trying to work out how to frame it so it _didn't_ look like the himbo had fooled him when Larkin pulled out all the stops.

When Larkin dropped to his knees, George was thinking that he should switch majors to Drama, because he had that down pat, but then his fly was down as if by magic and Larkin was going to town on him. George tried to stop him, for a moment, but that boy had such an incredible mouth! George Fleming wasn't gay, no Sir! and he'd sue anyone who said he was for defamation of character, but what that boy could do with his mouth…. he'd never experienced anything like it!

Larkin found Professor Fleming rather more mellow and open to discussing options once he was done. Fleming accepted that it would be hard to retract his recommendation for Larkin without admitting that he'd been fooled, and as the boy had managed to do this good a job of fooling the faculty of Stanford, he shouldn't have any trouble fooling the office drones at the CIA when he got there. In the end Fleming said that Larkin had to get more coaching from Bartowski, and keep using the admins in the office to replace his results with better ones, but he'd cover for him where he could, _providing_ that he kept doing what he just did, got the female recruits he wanted on board, and helped him talk around some of the more recalcitrant female students that he wanted to spend some…. extra credit time with. Larkin didn't have any trouble agreeing to all of that, the hardest part would be getting the extra coaching from Bartowski, but he was sure that the sap would agree to avoid getting his girlfriend in trouble with her family.

Once Larkin was gone, Fleming pulled out Bartowski's file, but after considering it briefly he regretfully shook his head. There was no question that the kid was brilliant, he was quite possibly the smartest student the school had had in a decade, but he wasn't athletic at all, in fact he was a klutz... he could remember at least half a dozen instances without trying of Bartowski coming in in bandages because he'd had an accident of some sort…. He wasn't unfortunate looking, but he could hardly talk to girls, Larkin saying he had a girlfriend had been quite a surprise until he'd decided that she must be one of those geeks he hung out with and he'd heard students talking about how nice he was, so that was probably how he'd landed her. No, Bartowski definitely wasn't agent material, and the last time he sent in a recommendation for a promising analyst he was told in no uncertain terms that they were looking for agents, not analysts! With that, Fleming put Bartowski's file away and didn't think about him again for over two years until his students did the exam for his mandatory Subliminal Imagery course, and he found that he'd had the very one they'd been looking for under his nose for the last four years.

* * *

Larkin couldn't work out what was going on when he came in for his weekly session with Fleming, because he was bouncing around like the energiser bunny, and he wasn't normally like that until _after_ he'd done what he was here for. He asked him what he was so excited about and Fleming started raving about the Subliminal Imagery test results.

When Larkin asked what he got, Fleming dismissed it. "Oh, something in the eighties I think, but your room mate Bartowski got over _ninety eight percent!_ It was nearly a perfect score! We've never seen anyone get _anything_ over ninety percent before this, and the minimum threshold was set at ninety two percent by the original project lead, so Bartowski is the one we've been looking for!"

"What's so important about that?"

"What's so important? This is the Omaha Project Bryce, the most important project we have! We've all been searching for a candidate who had what we needed to be made the focal point for this project for years and _I'm_ the one who found him!"

"What are you talking about George? What's the point of this Omaha Project?"

"The point Bryce? Only to create a super agent! Once they load this into Bartowski he'll become the most important agent in the CIA! Hell, he'll be the most important agent period! No-one else will matter, the best of the rest will be made his support team and they'll get every important assignment, him and his team be unbeatable!"

The idea of being made redundant before he even started by _Bartowski_ infuriated Bryce, and hearing 'the best of the rest' brought one person to mind, that bitch who'd dismissed him without a thought when he'd turned on the charm as soon as they completed their mission, the Ice Queen. Word was that she'd only been in the game for a few years now but she apparently had all of the top agents worried because they said that there wasn't anything she couldn't do, and he had to concede that she _was_ stunning.

He smiled as he thought about how _that_ sort of arm candy would get him into anywhere, and get him access to anyone he wanted, but first he was going to make the bitch pay for dismissing him like that, she was the only one who he'd ever failed to charm and he wasn't going to let her spoil his perfect record, he'd have her on her knees begging for forgiveness and doing everything he said. But apparently the key to getting everything he wanted was this one stupid test, so George was about to have the time of his life. It wouldn't be long before Bartowski was dismissed and the paperwork was sent to the CIA to confirm that _Bryce Larkin_ was the genius who'd scored over ninety eight percent in their stupid test, and then everything would be coming up roses for him! By the time Bryce left Fleming's office, he had his wish, they'd fabricated and lodged the evidence and reports for the case to have Bartowski kicked out for cheating, and Fleming had sent off the paperwork to the CIA to show that Bryce Larkin had scored over ninety eight percent in the Subliminal Imagery test. Bryce was feeling pretty good with the world at that point.

* * *

Anna knew that something was wrong when Jill's 'Uncle Bernie' suddenly turned up in Palo Alto and she had to go see him. The fact that Jill told her that the reason she had to go see him was because this Uncle Bernie was the one who'd arranged for the endowment that paid for her to come to Stanford just set off more alarm bells.

When Jill came back, she was in tears, because the endowment that Uncle Bernie organised had come with strings attached. Apparently it had been put up by some spy organisation called 'Fulcrum' and now they were telling her that they owned her and expected her to do whatever they said, and terrible things would happen to her family if she didn't. "Oh, and what they expect me to do is break up with Chuck and seduce Bryce Larkin to get him to ditch the CIA and come across to Fulcrum!"

Once Jill had finished recounting the tale to Chuck when he came home, Anna held her as she asked. "Who are they Chuck? and what can we do about them?"

Chuck hadn't come across anything about them in his work, so he pulled out his phone, calling Auntie Di on speaker. "Auntie Di, what do you know about an organisation known as Fulcrum?"

She was quiet for a moment then asked cagily. "Not a lot, why do you ask Chuck?"

"Because they were apparently the ones who put up the endowment for my friend Jill Roberts to go to Stanford, and they've just called in their marker and told her that she'll do whatever they tell her to or else her family will pay."

Auntie Di swore at that and said. "I can hear that Chuck has me on speaker, so I may as well tell all of you, as I said to him I don't have much, but Fulcrum are supposedly a group of hard liners who aren't happy with how soft they see America is getting, so they've decided to take it on themselves to turn it back in the right direction as they see it."

Anna gave Jill a nudge to tell Diane what they were asking of her. "What they've ordered me to do is break up with Chuck and seduce Bryce Larkin to get him to leave the CIA and come across to them."

Diane swore again. "How the hell did you miss that Larkin was CIA Chuck?"

"I don't think he _is_ actually CIA yet Auntie Di, he was probably recruited here, but this Fulcrum must have found out something about him to make them want him."

"Okay, you may have a point there... Look, I think we better get your mother and Emma in on this call, and Roan too, wait a minute…."

Once she'd gotten everyone on the call, they spent the next couple of hours explaining to Jill the best way to deal with the mess she was in. When Mary came out and said that she was obviously going to have to let Larkin do what he wanted to her to seduce him, Jill broke down, and Anna had to remind Mary that while Larkin was apparently more bi than gay now from the stories about all the women he'd had sex with over the last couple of years, Jill _wasn't_ and she'd never had sex with a man.

It was actually Roan who gently told Jill much the same thing as Jane told Sarah, that it would be far better for her if she had her first few times with someone she could trust, like Chuck, and said that Anna could vouch for how gentle and caring a lover he was. This last was news to Mary and Di, so there was quite a bit of shouting going on until Roan told them to shut up and reminded them what they were here to talk about.

Anna spoke up then. "Thank you Uncle Roan, and yes, Chuck _was_ very gentle and caring with me for my first few times. It was lovely actually so I'm sure that that wasn't why Lou ran away... It's up to you Honey but if Chuck is willing I think that it would be a very good idea for you to do what Uncle Roan suggested."

Jill and Chuck nodded, and Anna spoke up again to cut off Mary angrily muttering. "We'll be discussing this the next time you come home Chuck!" with "Is there anything else we need to discuss about this?"

And when Mary spoke again she sounded genuinely regretful. "Yes, I'm afraid that there is. While I wholeheartedly agree with the recommendation to give Jill a gentle and loving experience for her first few times, that will not be enough I'm afraid. From what you've told us about this Larkin character, you will have to expect him to be rough and demanding, determined to dominate her, especially if he believes that he is taking Charles' long term girlfriend off of him, so if Jill is to be prepared for that you will need to be rough and demanding with her as well Chuck."

Jill and Chuck were looking horrified at this, and Anna pointed out something else. "And anal, given Larkin's primary orientation Jill will need to be prepared for that too."

That made Chuck panic and drop into being a more normal teenage boy for a moment. "Oh no! You _can't_ have sex with him without a condom Jill! Being as arrogant as he is he probably refuses to use one most of the time so there's too much risk of AIDS! No, we have to find another way around this! Auntie Di, can't you arrange for Jill's family to be put into witness protection or something?"

His mother spoke up again. "Calm down Honey, there are ways around this, it isn't too difficult to convince a man that it's his idea to wear a condom, I can talk Jill through some methods and I'm sure that Roan and Di will be able to tell her more than I can. As far as witness protection goes, we don't know whether Fulcrum actually has them under observation yet but if they do, trying to move them would just put them at risk. Jill, this is your decision, if you think you can do it, doing what we've discussed here will most probably be the safest option for your family. If that is what you choose, you and Chuck should start practising sex after Roan, Di and I run you through what you will need to cover. It will take you a few days before you'll be ready to try approaching Larkin though so we'll have time for more coaching sessions between your practice sessions. So Honey, can you do this, or do we need to take a chance and try to get your family out?"

There was silence as they waited for Jill's answer, she looked a question at Chuck and when he nodded she spoke. "Yes, if this is what it takes to keep my family safe, I can do it... What else do I need to know?"

They spoke for a while longer and when they finished the call, Anna kissed both of them before they went to have the first of their practice sessions.

As Mary had said, it took a few days before Jill was anything like ready to approach Larkin, and she spent quite a bit of time on the phone to Mary, Di and Roan getting coached on what she needed to do. That also gave her and Chuck the opportunity to stage an escalating series of arguments to convince everyone, and in particular Larkin, that there were problems in their relationship. They couldn't work out what Larkin was looking so smug about when they staged the final argument in his and Chuck's room though, not until Chuck was called into the Dean's office the next day to be expelled for cheating anyway.

Once they'd done what they could to try and ensure that Jill would be prepared, and talked through and role played various scenarios in hope that she'd be able to minimise the sex involved, Jill went to see Larkin. From what she told them when she got back she was lucky, both in that he wasn't really interested in doing much with a woman and that he had a short fuse anyway, which meant that from what she said she got through it with minimal sex and had him set up, contented, for the talk she had to have with him about Fulcrum. Apparently playing up to Larkin's ego after he'd had his fill of sex was all it took for Jill to get him to agree to have a meeting with Uncle Bernie in that first session, which meant that she didn't have to see him again after that.

Larkin didn't waste any time telling everyone about how Jill had come to him, upset about Chuck being caught cheating, and he'd banged her every which way. This of course had Jill being called a two timing slut by most of the people on campus because Chuck was well liked and most people who knew him didn't believe the stories about him cheating, but she was almost finished at Stanford anyway and as long as she still had Anna and Chuck knew the truth, she wasn't worried about what anyone else at Stanford thought of her. She just had to finish her exams and leave.

Uncle Bernie was an old hand at this so he knew how to deal with people like Larkin, he just offered him Jill and anything else he wanted. But while Larkin took everything else, he passed on Jill because he'd already been there, done that, and more to the point he had his eye on the prize, the Ice Queen. Luckily for Jill, that meant that Fulcrum really had no further use for her, sure, she'd bagged them the prize but she'd just happened to be in the right place for that. They weren't about to let her off the hook completely of course, but they put her aside to be forgotten until something else came up once Larkin passed on her.

* * *

As soon as he was confident that Jill would be OK, Chuck took the J30 and headed back to Los Angeles. Of course, the first thing he had to face when he got home was the interrogation about what Uncle Roan and Anna had revealed when they were trying to deal with Jill's crisis... That he'd had sex with _at least_ two girls just after he'd turned eleven (Mary wasn't in the mood to believe that he'd _only_ slept with friends at their request when they had a good reason to ask, in her mind her baby boy had been a pre-teen sex fiend). That wasn't a fun discussion, but they had Ellie, Auntie Em, Auntie Sue and Bai there to diffuse the situation, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Chuck was just grateful that Ljuda and the other girls' names hadn't come up, because that would have made his mother's reaction far worse.

The week after his expulsion had given Chuck plenty of time to go through and collect all the digital and video evidence he needed to prove his case against the university. Larkin was pathetic when it came to security, and Fleming wasn't any better, so he'd just had to wait until they were logged onto the network to get copies of everything on their computers, which included all of the evidence that Larkin was collecting on Fleming to ensure that he delivered on his promises, what Fleming kept about his 'conquests' and the evidence that they'd fabricated against him (and the sex tape Larkin had made of him and Jill, but Chuck had corrupted the audio and video on that enough to ensure that the girl couldn't be identified before he had a chance to use it). He also had the video evidence from the IP cameras he'd set up in their room in first year, which clearly showed Larkin planting the test results under his mattress, and then showing the campus police exactly where to find them), and he had plenty of work to be getting on with in Arcadia.

There hadn't been anything of any great interest other than the recordings of Fleming with Larkin and other students from his office and the records of students' altered results on their computers, but those, and of course the recordings of Larkin planting the stolen exams under his mattress to be found by Campus Security made most of the case they needed to get his expulsion overturned, the rest came from the Stanford systems logs, which showed the date, time and Fleming's ID where he altered Chuck's results to match the stolen exams.

Chuck went back to Stanford in early June when the final exams were over, with John as FBI Special Agent Martin Harris and Roan as Chuck's lawyer Bernard Larouche, senior partner at Larouche and Marks, again. The Chancellor went white when he saw them, because he hadn't forgotten what had happened the last time these men turned up in his office. He quickly called the Dean and other relevant people in.

John steamrollered over all their attempts to justify themselves as he showed proof that every piece of the so-called evidence that was used to expel Chuck had in fact been fabricated by Larkin and Fleming, and that the Dean had done absolutely no investigation into the matter and ignored the processes that he had been legally required to follow, expelling Chuck without giving him any opportunity to defend himself on Fleming's word alone. When they saw the proof that they were facing serious legal and reputation issues, the university immediately reversed the expulsion and cancellation of Chuck's scholarship, and offered him the opportunity to come back at his convenience to take his exams so that he could graduate with the same standing as he would have before this unfortunate business.

They were taken aback when Chuck said he'd take the exams then and there, because he'd moved away from San Francisco immediately after he was expelled to get away from all the abuse and finger pointing, so it would be both inconvenient and unpleasant for him to have to return to Palo Alto again... But they scrabbled to get the examinations set up for him immediately, hoping that this would be enough to get them out of the hole they'd dug themselves into. While Chuck went off to do his exams, John and Roan remained in the Chancellor's office, and began going through each and every instance of where the university had failed to comply with its legal responsibilities in this matter and denied Chuck his legal rights in detail.

They were still there when Chuck returned a few hours later. The officials asked whether he wanted to schedule another day to come back to do the exams after all, presuming that he must have given up on them and thinking that if they got these people out of here quickly they may have time to prepare a better defence, but he shook his head, saying that they were all completed. While shocked, one of the officials was sent to get the results while they worked through the rest of it. Roan pointed out that his client had changed his name as soon as he left Stanford to try and get away from the stigma accruing from the well publicised scandal of his being expelled and thrown out on his ear the way he was, and requested that Mr Bartowski's degrees be issued in his new name, Charles Carmichael, handing over the paperwork to prove that the change of name was legal. They fell over themselves agreeing to this, and to re-issuing his MBA in his new name as well.

Roan smiled to himself then, because _this_ was what he'd been looking forward to! With that, he launched into the matter of compensation for loss of reputation and potential earnings resulting from Mr Bartowski's unlawful and very public expulsion for cheating and the subsequent wilful destruction of his reputation. He presented evidence of numerous colourful, inflammatory and wildly inaccurate newspaper and on-line reports about how disgraceful it was that Stanford's bright young star Charles Bartowski had been revealed to be cheating the way he was and how he was quite rightly expelled for that as evidence of this. Roan then presented them with a claim for Twelve Million Dollars compensation for loss of potential earnings, but the other university officials ignored the Chancellor when he tried to shut them up (as he had a good idea of what was about to happen) and they rejected it out of hand, saying that it was preposterous because Bartowski was getting his degrees anyway and that fact that he'd already changed his name removed any of the alleged stigma attached to the matter.

Roan made a show of looking a question at Chuck and at Chuck's nod took back the claim paperwork.

The Chancellor groaned at this, but the other officials were crowing. "You're withdrawing your ridiculous claim then?"

Roan shook his head and grinned wolfishly as he presented the paperwork for a new claim for _Twenty Four_ Million. "Not at all! I really must thank you Chancellor, it was rather sporting of you not to spoil my fun after the last time. You see gentlemen, Mister Bartowski, sorry, Mister _Carmichael_ here is an honourable young man and he didn't want to see the university as a whole being unfairly penalised for the failings of a few individuals, so he insisted that I _only_ claim compensation for his sister, because while Mister Carmichael has changed his name to escape the stigma now attached to the Bartowski name due to the unfounded slander put about by representatives of this university, including _you_ Dean Wainwright, his sister is in no position to do this because she is still locked into her medical studies and residency, so by defaming Mister Bartowski and the Bartowski name in the way you have, you have _also_ adversely effected _Miss_ Bartowski's reputation and career prospects. However, as my agreed fee is a percentage of the settlement I obtain for him, he conceded that if, and _only_ if, you rejected the extremely fair compensation claim that he asked for out of hand and refused to give it any serious consideration, he would allow me to proceed with my original proposal of Twelve Million for _each_ of them, which is what we are now doing. So…"

Roan spent the next hour going through the detailed earning projections for Stanford's brightest young star in possibly decades, against those of an unknown Stanford graduate with the type of results that he was expected to get, and similar earning projections for the brightest star of UCLA's medical program against another medical student of comparable ability who's career prospects and reputation had been destroyed by a scandal. He added that the university should thank its luck stars that the rest of the family had agreed to forgo pursuing additional damages for themselves because they were not trying to start their careers as Mister Carmichael and Miss Bartowski still were.

They left Stanford that day with Charles Carmichael's degrees (with an even better result than he'd been expecting after all the stress of the last couple of months), and guarantees from the university that they would provide fair and honest references to any university that he chose to pursue post graduate studies with _and_ confirm that the charges of cheating levelled against Mr Bartowski had all been proven to be totally false, and that he'd since obtained his degrees without revealing the name he was now using if they received any formal enquiries on the matter in regard to either Mister Carmichael _or_ Miss Bartowski. They also confirmed with the bank that the Twenty Four Million Dollars had been transferred into Larouche and Marks' account before they left, and readily agreed to the university's conditions of total secrecy around the outcome and terms of the settlement, as that suited them down to the ground this time.

The Chancellor was seething when they left, because all the grants that Fleming had brought in, which were the reason the Dean had fallen all over himself to expel Bartowski on the spot to keep Fleming happy, hadn't even added up to half as much as they'd just lost because of this debacle.

* * *

As soon as Anna and Jill finished their final exams, Jeff, Anna and Jill packed up, put the house on the market and went home to Los Angeles (driving, because they still didn't trust Jill with the secret of what they had at Moffett Field). After living together for most of the last five years in Palo Alto, moving back to their families' homes was hard for Anna and Jill, all the more so for Jill because her parents were asking her just who Chuck's girlfriend was, because Uncle Bernie had said something about her being with Chuck at Stanford up until he was expelled for cheating? The situation kept getting worse, up until Jill stopped answering any of their calls and Anna went to see her to find out what was wrong, because she was told by Jill's parents that she'd gone to New York to take up a job opportunity there.

They couldn't find any trace of Jill in New York when they tried searching for her, and Anna was getting ready to run off to New York to hunt her down on foot if she had to. Anna hurt Chuck deeply when he tried to point out that they had a much better chance of finding Jill using the resources that they had at their disposal here, because she snarled at him that that had really worked for him, finding his precious Sammie, hadn't it? He just looked at her, then turned and walked out of the house without a word, but they heard his bike bellowing off up the street a few minutes later. Anna fell apart when she realised what she'd done, and he wouldn't answer his phone so she could tell him how sorry she was. When Chuck came back in the early hours of the morning, she was sitting in the living room in tears, waiting to apologise, but he just took her by the hand and they went to bed to hold each other.

Anna got a letter from Jill a month or so after she disappeared to explain what had happened. Apparently she hadn't told them the truth when she said that everything had gone to plan with Larkin, as she'd only managed to get him to wear a condom the first time, not the second or third times because she'd gotten carried away. She hadn't caught AIDS from him though, she'd gotten pregnant. She'd hadn't known what the signs of being pregnant were, so she didn't work out that she was until the foetus had developed to the point where the books she read said that it was a person. The thing was, she _had_ been raised as a strict Catholic and while being a homosexual was regarded as a sin she still believed in what she was taught, so she had decided that this was god's punishment for her enjoying having sex outside of the sanctity of marriage and would be keeping the baby as her penance. She'd gone to someone she knew through her family who had offered to support her through the pregnancy and give her somewhere to raise the baby. After the baby was born, she was hoping to make a new life for the two of them somewhere that everyone who she'd let down couldn't find her. She finished by saying that she'd asked someone to post this letter well away from where she was to prevent anyone finding her, and that she was hoping that Fulcrum would leave her family alone if she just disappeared.

Anna broke down when she read that letter, seeing that Jill had chosen to have unprotected sex with Larkin because she enjoyed it, but it was the sin of having sex outside marriage that she was upset about, _not_ the fact that she'd cheated on Anna. That was probably why Anna reacted the way she did when her own parents started pressuring her to settle down with a good Chinese boy instead of running around with her wild American boyfriend who they were told had been expelled from Stanford for cheating. Her response to that was to go upstairs, pack a few bags, grab her laptop and leave, telling them that she'd organise for someone to come and get the rest of her things later. When she got to Casa Bartowski, she asked if she could stay in their guest room until she found herself a place, but Chuck just took her bags and led her to his room as she was obviously in no state to be by herself at that point.

* * *

They laid on the bed, holding each other and talking about Jill and what they were going to do until Ellie came up to get them for dinner. All the women came up to hug and kiss Anna and tell her that she was staying here (including Lexie, Katy, Josie and Viv, who like Ellie and Chuck had grown up all too fast in that environment), then they settled down to dinner. Mary shook her head at Ellie when she tried to wind up Chuck about the fact that as the only male in the house he was even more of a minority now, and asked. "Have you two decided what you're going to do? I expect that you've started making plans at least?"

Chuck grinned at Anna because he'd told her that one of them would bring that up straight away. "Yeah Mom, we're going to be using MTS and some of our other cover businesses so we can switch and change between them when we need to. We'll mostly offer consulting services, though we'll do some technical services as well. We're thinking of buying premises…."

Anna gave him a look at that " _We_ are?", but he just nodded and continued "I'm thinking of making that with living quarters _now"_ (shooting a look at Ellie) "in the business district. I'd like to have another location to run our operations out of down here anyway, because the Echo Park apartments, El Monte and Los Alamitos are too open for what we do... I'm actually thinking of setting up the business location to be our primary base of operations to get attention away from where we live, because it's a lot easier to cover up what's going on when you have a number of companies working out of one location."

* * *

When Ellie finished medical school and started at the Westside Medical Centre, the Cover Bureau had insisted that she needed more believable accommodations for her station in life so they made her move into an apartment in Echo Park. The family went in and bought up all the other apartments there soon afterwards, putting some of their people into them and improving the security arrangements, but none of them were really happy about Ellie staying there because it was still too exposed, so she stayed home more nights than she was there. The trolls in the Cover Bureau had also tried to dictate to her that she had to get into a serious relationship with a suitable _white_ male doctor or administrator at the Medical Centre to cement her cover as an up and coming young doctor, arguing that a beautiful young woman like her being unattached and only being seen with women or her brother or even worse, that young black soldier that she'd been seen with a few times, would attract too much suspicion so she needed to get herself the _right_ type of partner to support her cover. She was on the verge of taking one of the J30s and flying to Washington to let the Cover Bureau know exactly what she thought of that _suggestion_ when a solution fell right into their laps…. Skip had been hanging out with her at UCLA because they both missed Chuck and Anna (not Jill so much, she was just Anna's girlfriend to most of the family because she didn't really fit in), and that was how he'd hooked up with one of her classmates, Jethro...

Well his name was actually Devon Woodcomb but he _was_ thick as a brick and when Mary called him that in an exasperated moment and everyone else took it up, he locked it in by embracing it as an endearment. Jethro was too afraid of his parents back east to come out of the closet so he tried to act all macho, going on and on about extreme sports and coming onto women all the time... The situation where he and Skip hooked up actually came about because Skip had to intercede to prevent Ellie doing him serious damage when he was stupid enough to come onto her and wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. He drove most of them, even Skip, around the bend most of the time with his stupid comments but he generally met Skip's needs so they put up with him for Skip's sake, much as they did Jill. When he started at Westside with Ellie and she was ordered by the Cover Bureau to start a relationship, Skip used Jethro's fear of his parents' reaction to his being gay to convince him that pretending to be in a relationship with Ellie would help cover up the fact that he was gay, just as Chuck was covering for Anna and Jill at Stanford. The fact that he and Skip were also living in one of their apartments at Echo Park too made it easy enough to pretend that he was with Ellie instead of Skip when they threw parties with people from Westside or UCLA there, and John, Bry, Buck, Mike, Charly and Mary were intimidating enough to dissuade people from just dropping by when they felt like it, the security measures they'd added to kept non-residents out of the complex helped with that too.

Chuck watched his mother do the mental shift from Mom to operative as she considered that last and nodded. "Yes, it would be good to have somewhere else to run our operations out of."

She was up to something though, because she'd stopped to think of something else first and whatever that was had obviously weighted her professional assessment of the matter. He didn't bother asking her about it though because his mother was even more 'need to know' than Auntie Di, so if she didn't offer the information, there was no chance of getting it out of her.

* * *

Anna's anguish and anger over how Jill had left her took a while to get over, but settling into her new life as part of the family helped. Chuck wasn't happy that part of the therapy to help her get over that was going out clubbing with Ellie, Ljuda, Skip, Jethro and Chuck, but no matter much he hated the club scene, he went along with it because couldn't refuse Anna anything when she was hurting like this.

Her mother was quite shocked the day Anna turned up with a team of removalists (including John) to get the rest of her things, and she made sure that her mother got the message when she handed her a cheque with an attached note that detailed how it covered everything they'd spent to send her to Stanford, and the cost of her car as well…. that she was paying back everything they'd spent on her to ensure that they no longer had any claim on her, because as far as she was concerned they were no longer part of her life! As she was about to leave though, Anna stopped and turned back, wanting to lash out.

"By the way _mother_! Chuck isn't my boyfriend, he's my best friend. That's all he ever has been or will be, even though he's by far the best man I could ever hope to meet, because I'm a _lesbian_! Chuck and his family have supported my choices in this for over seven years now without question, even though my own family never would!" With that she stormed out, with a smirking John Casey following her, but she broke down in the car when John said "Good for you" and gently asked if she was OK, crying on his shoulder. When she'd recovered enough she kissed him on the cheek, giving him a look of thanks before they drove off.

Her parents never cashed that cheque for some reason, whether her mother tore it up to cover up what it meant or they were trying to apologise, but Anna never contacted them to ask why, she just left the money sitting in her account until she had a use for it. They also didn't know that she'd legally changed her name to match her Navy identity of Anna Wang and got Stanford to reissue her degrees in that name, so their daughter Anna Wu didn't exist any more.

Even though she'd said that she didn't want to be found, they did start a search for Jill to try and make sure she was OK, adding it to the search for Sammie. They still hadn't any luck with _that_ search either, but something else had been catching Chuck's eye over the past few years, an increasing number of references to an exceptional young CIA agent who was only ever referred to as the 'Ice Queen', as in that time she'd apparently completed far more missions than anyone else with an unparalleled success rate (and a frighteningly high kill count), and comments about her were usually around the fact that the bitch was stunning but inhuman, and that no-one could stand up to or match her because she was a robot. These stories intrigued Chuck, because they conjured an image in his head of a beautiful, deadly cyborg (something his mother and Ellie said just proved that he watched way too much sci-fi, but Auntie Em, Viv, Benjie, Josie, Katy and Anna were kinder about), so he'd added any references to the Ice Queen to his searches as well.

* * *

They looked around Arcadia's business district for something that would make suitable premises for 'their' offices (Anna, Jeff and Skip used air quotes whenever they said 'our offices' because this was all Chuck's project) until Chuck found a property near the schools and racetrack that had a row of four large two storey warehouse buildings that took up the entire city block (about 68 x 270 Metres with roads running right around it). As warehouses, the ground floor of the buildings was thirty seven feet high, so with another thirteen foot high floor above that they were about fifty feet high. The buildings were run down but structurally sound and they were currently vacant... The owners had been hanging onto the property for twenty five years, hoping to sell it to developers when the next boom drove the prices up because that much property in a prime location would have made them a pretty bundle. Once Chuck had confirmed that everything was above board, he used the tricks Uncle Roan had taught him over the last ten years or so to talk the price down to Twelve Million (about a Million per 1500 square metres) for an immediate sale, transferring the money the day they exchanged contracts to close the deal quickly before they had a chance to stop and reconsider.

When he showed Anna was his plans to renovate the buildings, she was impressed, as he was making them into one building and cladding the whole thing in armour glass two way mirrors (which _was_ actually armoured glass, capable of handling impacts from over 30mm rounds, it was something his father came up with in one of his more lucid periods and they made a lot of money from it), this cladding effectively added another two floors to the building height as it extended about seven metres past the roof line, and the designs included _active_ defence systems as well as the armour glass and other passive defence systems. The roof was reinforced to allow it to safely support all of their MI-26s _and_ MI-6s together if necessary (they weren't planning on having anything heavier than their H90 landing on the roof for the foreseeable future, but having the ability to bring the big copters in to get everyone out in a hurry was an option he'd like to have available), splitting most of the ground floor and two thirds of the basement into three levels each. The ground floor of the building would nominally be taken up by sixteen businesses, Lotus Systems, Piranha Security & Technology, Emerald City, Emerald Air, Munchkin Services, Quadling Security, Winkie Technology, Gillikin Salvage, Nonestic Shipping, Amaland Construction (eight year old Chuck had gotten a little carried away with the Wizard of Oz references when he was creating their defense contractor cover businesses back in early Ninety, they'd let him have his fun because they believed that the business names would remain under cover but by the end of Ninety One most of their key functions came under one of those defense contractors, which were all in turn under the Carmichael Industries umbrella), Noble House, the Larouche and Marks law offices, La Mancha Holdings, Equis Enterprises, Bonnie and Cly FX Studios and Shiloh Secure Storage, with apartments above them. Aside from what he'd said about covering up their comings and goings, Chuck had decided that that much real estate would be more believable with several business offices and the storage business, and he also had plans to expand their operations down the track. There was another feature of this property which had made it even more attractive for their purposes when they discovered it. It must have been used for illegal purposes at some point in the past because fifteen feet underground there was a forty foot high basement level that covered the entire block and there were several escape tunnels going out from the basements of the buildings which mostly terminated under commercial properties now, so part of the renovation plans was to shore these tunnels up, carefully clear the outer ends of these tunnels and conceal and secure both ends of the tunnels.

The family was amused about Chuck's 'modest' business premises and plans, but conceded that everything appeared quite logical and sound for their operations, so as soon as Pops and the other engineers in Amaland Construction agreed that the plans were viable, Chuck handed it over to them to get started. They were all working from home (in Arcadia or Echo Park) while the building renovations were proceeding, but referrals from people who knew them from the hacker world and Stanford (and Auntie Di and Uncle Roan quietly directing people their way) resulted in their reputation spreading quickly, so quickly that they had to start thinking about bringing even more people on to handle the workload.

* * *

Keeping themselves hidden from Volkoff became an even higher priority just after they finished at Stanford in June Two Thousand though, because they saw a report about an elderly woman, Dorothy Winterbottom, being tortured and killed in her home in Somerset, England. With the infallible memories that they got from their Mom, Ellie and Chuck weren't likely to forget the fact that Winterbottom was in fact Uncle Hartley's name, that he had been English, or what she'd told them the monster Uncle Hartley had been turned into did to her in Russia when they were older, so they started looking into the woman's murder.

This was where it got complicated, because it turned out that another woman, Elizabeth McArthur, had been tortured and killed in very similar circumstances only a couple of hundred miles away the night _before_ Uncle Hartley's mother was. When they investigated _her_ , they discovered that she had returned from Moscow with a baby girl called Vivian McArthur in Nineteen Ninety, but she had listed the father as 'unknown'. On top of that, her autopsy had shown no sign of her ever having had a baby. The woman's daughter was missing, and the most anyone had been able to tell the authorities was that she was away at boarding school somewhere.

To Ellie and Chuck, there was no question that this girl was their missing sister who had been taken from their mother at birth, but their mother refused to discuss the matter. While Ellie and Auntie Em tried to talk to Mary about it, Chuck, Jeff and Anna were trying to locate what school payments had been made to for Vivian's education, or any record of her attendance in school computers in England and Europe, and Auntie Di sent Uncle Roan to England as soon as she could get the necessary flight plans logged for one of their J70s, because this was what Roan was the very best at, charming information out of people. She also set things up for the necessary in-flight refuellings for one of their Super Tigers to get to England or Europe as quickly as possible as soon as he found out what was going on.

Ellie, Emma and Sue finally managed to get Mary to accept the fact that her daughter was _not_ responsible for what the one who fathered her did, and that as she had been taken to England just after she was born and there was no evidence that Alexei Volkoff had set foot in England since then, there was little chance that she had been influenced by him. For that matter, the fact that her foster mother had been tortured to death just like Uncle Hartley's mother had been seemed to be proof that she had been hiding the girl from Volkoff and his people and there was no indication that they'd found her yet. As far as the nature versus nurture argument went, there could be no part of Volkoff in her daughter's genes because _Volkoff_ was nothing but an imprinted personality. Therefore, genetically she would be a combination of Marjan Zaleska and Hartley Winterbottom and Mary had always said that Hartley had been much like Stefan, so that would not be a bad thing.

By the time Ellie, Chuck, Emma and Sue managed to convince Mary to accept her daughter, Chuck had found evidence that an almost ten year old Vivian McArthur was attending a girls' boarding school in England, and Uncle Roan had charmed the information to confirm that it was her out of the ladies at the school. So after a long and teary family discussion, Mary and Ellie took off in one of the Super Tigers to fly to England.

Vivian was as bright as they'd all expected her to be (how could she not be, with two brilliant parents?), so her mother and sister had little trouble getting her to accept who they were. Luckily they had Roan there to talk the school into releasing Vivian into her family's custody, but the obvious resemblance between Mary, Ellie and Vivian helped there too.

As soon as they got Vivian out of the school, they spirited her out of the country, Mary taking her back to America with Roan in the J70 before Volkoff and his minions could find her or any traces of her (Ellie had to fly the Super Tiger back to America by herself, but that helped her get her flight hours up a little and get more in-flight refuelling practice anyway).

Mary and Ellie had used Russian names and accents at the school and told them that Vivian was being taken back to Russia where she had been kidnapped from, and a phone call to Chuck was all it took to create electronic records that showed that Vivian McArthur had been on a privately owned Yak-40 heading back across Europe, up to the point where the flight records terminated after it crossed into Belarus. Records of the ownership of the jet had also been wiped years back and there were a few bankrupt and defunct businesses in the deleted links so there was no way to find what happened to it after that, but the beauty of it was that even if people did manage to track it down using non-electronic methods, its last known owner was a Belarusian warlord who'd disappeared in Ninety Five and who's name was linked to one of Volkoff's biggest losses.

* * *

Chuck knew for a fact that the records had been wiped for that particular plane because he'd done it himself, it was the old designation of _their_ Yak-40K. They'd used it to make their exit after they took out that warlord in Belarus in early Ninety Five, and found that he'd filled the rear of the cabin with extra fuel tanks that were big enough to give it several times the normal range. By the time they were far enough into safe territory to think about ditching the plane though, they'd decided that extending the range like that actually addressed one of the biggest problems with the plane, because it was a quite capable STOL aircraft that handled short unpaved airstrips and adverse conditions very well, and having that full sized cargo door was handy, so they decided to keep it and flew it home to the States, running it straight into the underground hangar at Red Mountain when they arrived. Hank (Army Aviation Master Warrant Officer Henry Higgins) and the team had started fixing up and making improvements to the Yak almost immediately, using the assembly and maintenance facilities in the hangar. They made up stronger and lighter titanium and carbon fibre components and frameworks for it and installed them, ripped out the heavy and bulky old instruments and avionics systems that had been outmoded and largely ineffectual when they were installed twenty years ago and replaced them with Airbus A320 fly by wire systems and controls, an advanced glass cockpit that was being developed for the new version of the Bombardier Challenger, and the latest and most sophisticated avionics equipment, had custom fuel cell tanks made up to fill more of the wings and under floor space and replaced the thirty year old engines with up to date ones that were more powerful and efficient, but Hank left its appearance much as it was so that they could use it to get in and out of Russia unobtrusively (their Yak-42s and TU-154s were too distinctive for that).

They'd used the Yak to extract a Ukrainian aeronautical engineer, Yuri Popov, and his family from Russia about six months later. Yuri had been forced to transfer from Antonov to Mil just before the Soviet Union fell because they needed his expertise in composites to progress their new composite Mil-38 design, but he got stuck in Russia after it collapsed. By the middle of Ninety Five, he'd managed to confirm that the Russian government had no intention of ever letting him return to the Ukraine, so he defected. The Yak-40 was the perfect vehicle to use to extract him and his family because there were over a thousand of them all over Russia and no-one would ever notice another Yak, so as soon as they were in the air they headed for the border and disappeared. By the time they refuelled at their facility on Santa Maria Island they were free and clear. Yuri was of course very interested in the changes and new capabilities of the Yak and he and Hank spent most of the flight home discussing the challenges and possibilities. Yuri's daughter Ljudmila, who had been studying aeronautical engineering at Moscow Aviation Institute up until they left, helped make this a lively three way discussion. At Hank's urging, they arranged for Yuri to be added to the Spectre Team when they got back to the States and he and Hank spent whatever time they could spare working on the Yak.

With those two working together, the modifications ended up going far further than what Hank had originally planned for it, the triple engines were replaced with a pair of the more powerful and efficient engines that Hank had found for the Smiliners, with the FADEC systems further improving their efficiency. They also added plugs in the fuselage fore and aft of the wings to lengthen it by about twenty feet, along with redesigned carbon fibre wings (slightly swept with leading edge slats and the like) and tail, and significantly improved the streamlining as well. By the time they were finished, they had replaced nearly all of the steel frameworks and the fuselage, wings, tail and the like with titanium and carbon fibre, and the significant weight reductions and engine and streamlining improvements gave it greatly increased cruising speed and range. The beauty of it was that people tended to write it off as an old Gulfstream, so they had a much faster, longer range plane with even better STOL performance (due to the lighter weight, improved wings and more powerful engines) that still didn't attract that much attention. They normally had the Yak set up as an executive jet, it could be converted to suit most mission purposes quickly and easily, but as an executive jet it was more comfortable and attracted less attention.

* * *

While he was at it, Chuck also deleted all records of Vivian McArthur from the school's computers to prevent anyone else locating the school the way he had. By the time he was done, all the available evidence pointed to Vivian being taken back to Russia as the school had been told, and someone in the old Soviet Bloc professionally wiping the records there to prevent her being found. The point of this was to try and convince Volkoff that someone in his own organisation had grabbed his heir, to either kill her to prevent her taking over from him, or groom her to be their puppet, and Volkoff was paranoid enough to swallow that hook, line and sinker.

Like Ellie and Chuck, Vivian had inherited their mother's eidetic memory and other talents, so she had no trouble picking up an American accent and remembering that her name was Vivien Leigh Mazur (because Vivien Leigh's birth name was actually Vivian Mary Hartley and using a movie star's name wouldn't be questioned much that close to Hollywood) and she was twelve now for school. Anyone who asked what her story was was told that she was Mary and Emma's niece and her parents had been killed in a car crash, so her aunts had gotten custody of her. The beauty of this story was that it was both easy to remember, and most people would shy away from asking too many questions because it was a painful subject. Chuck had gone though and removed any links between Ellie or Chuck Bartwoski and their address or Mom or Auntie Em from the school records, to remove any chance of their names being used to locate Vivien, and did the same to UCLA and Stanford's records too.

It was quite a change for Vivien, to be living in a loving home with her real mother, sister and brother, Auntie Em, Auntie Sue, Auntie Belle, five 'cousins' close to her own age in Josie, Katy, Benjie, Lexie and Uncle Bry, Uncle Buck, Uncle Mike, Bai, Sam, Gypsy and Skip there most of the time too. Her mother, Auntie Em, Auntie Sue, Uncle Bry, Uncle Buck and Uncle Roan gave her the same kind of training that Ellie, Chuck, Katie, Lexie, Benjie and Josie got, but they made learning this stuff fun and rewarding so that was no problem for her, and she was learning so much now. She was also flying all over the country to their other bases with Chuck and Ellie, which made her life very exciting!

The J30 they normally flew in ( _Chuck's_ J30) was actually one of the toys they had acquired when they took down a large military auction back in late Ninety Six. It was quite handy to have, but the beauty of it was that they had actually taken it, most of their toys and another Three Hundred and Fifty odd Million Dollars on top of that off Vivien's father.

* * *

As a team, they had always followed the practice that according to Chuck's Mom, Auntie Di, Uncle Bry and Uncle Roan, the CIA had established decades ago, cleaning out their targets when they took them down. As it was explained to Chuck, there were two main reasons for doing this. The first was to remove the possibility of the target's associates using the money to carry on whatever activities had them sent after the target in the first place, and the second was to fund their own operation so that they would be able to continue going after the ones that they were taking down.

Chuck had been part of this since Ninety, working with his Mom, John, Uncle Bry and Uncle Roan, and Ellie and Anna too. His duties as far as cleaning out the targets went were mostly related to emptying all of the target's accounts and moving the money off-shore (they had some _very_ healthy accounts in the Cayman Islands, and a few nice villas for that matter, as they'd needed home and business addresses to set up the family and some of the others as citizens of the Caymans, and establish their core businesses) before anyone had a chance to sound an alarm, but sometimes his involvement was more direct.

In late Ninety Six, they'd received intel about an upcoming invitation only military auction being held in Mexico, where they would reportedly be selling combat ready two seat multi-role combat jets along with helicopter gunships and other advanced aircraft, and a pile of other specialised military equipment. The fact that this intel and the invitation to attend the auction came by way of the CIA made them leery of it, _especially_ when they were told that it had all been word of mouth when they asked for corroborating evidence on this auction, but Auntie Di was given the mandate by both the National Security Advisor and Secretary of Defense to make certain that those combat jets and gunships and anything else of their ilk didn't get into the wrong hands, so they put together a two company strong strike team made up of most of their best people to remove or destroy the combat jets and gunships by force if necessary, and had organised two of their Thomastons to carry out what they were told would be there if they could get them away from the auction... but they needed to confirm that they were actually functional enough to represent a threat _before_ they created an international incident by initiating a military action on foreign soil. The problem with _that_ was most of their 'real' agents were too well known in those circles to successfully infiltrate the event, and while John was royally pissed off by the way Roan gleefully listed his failings in regard to being able to effectively charm targets for a mission as if he weren't standing right there when his name was put forward, he had to concede that most of Roan's points _were_ accurate.

That was why, after a considerable amount of argument over him not being ready, it was agreed that Chuck would be the primary for the infiltration of the auction to confirm the weapons status on this mission. Ellie would go with him as a brother/sister team, but with the type of men they'd be dealing with he'd have to take the lead as the male. He set his and Ellie's identities up as the children of a powerful but shadowy Russian Mob Boss (using the family name of the Belarusian warlord they took the Yak off but unconsciously modelling the father on Alexei Volkoff) from one of the myriad small countries that made up the remnants of the Soviet Bloc nowadays, and the back story would be that their father was a cruel taskmaster who had decided that it was high time his heir demonstrated whether he had what it took to take over the business, so this was a test. Side whispers would be quietly repeated in earshot of others at the auction that the word was, if he _didn't_ perform well there, the likelihood of his ever reaching his upcoming twentieth birthday wasn't good.

John was relegated to a hulking bodyguard (as Uncle Roan said that he was perfect for _that_ ), and Anna went as Chuck's plaything and bodyguard. She almost broke Chuck with the outfit that she, Ellie and Mary came up with for this because it was a sexy little schoolgirl cosplay outfit that was more suited to wild parties or bedroom role playing than a venue full of cavemen running on testosterone, but the girls pointed out that she wouldn't be the only one on display like that there and it would help make everyone else dismiss her as nothing but his plaything until they had a need or use for her to show what she could do. At least Ellie was wearing a stylish but not overtly sexy pant suit, as seeing his big sister in anything like what Anna was wearing would have definitely broken Chuck at that point. They'd also have their aircraft experts Hank and Yuri there to check out the merchandise and a few other guards with them.

Their plans went straight out the window as soon as they landed at the small resort where the auction was to be held, because this was far bigger than their intel had indicated. From what they were told, they had been expecting a number of combat jets and helicopter gunships, maybe some military transports and a variety of weapons but quite aside from the long line of buyers' business jets parked beside of the airstrip up behind the resort, there were four of what looked like lengthened Yak-42 M2s and a bigger plane that looked like a cross between a IL-86 and An-124 with twin engines and twin tails on display there. From what they were told, everything else was on the ships that were tied up at the resort's pier, which were what appeared to be one of the French Ouragan class Landing Craft Transports that had been decommissioned a couple of years ago, probably the Orage going by the name on its stern, and what appeared to be the Russian Large Landing Craft that had been decommissioned at the beginning of the year, the Ivan Rogov, but it looked like they had been done up quite a bit.

According to the auction item lists they were handed when they arrived, the planes up at the airstrip were actually 'bespoke advanced jet transport aircraft' called a Super Jet SJ-90 and Super Jet SJ-70s, and everything else included six of the ST-5 Super Tiger combat jets they'd come for, and six each of the SJ-50 and SJ-30 jet transports and SH-90, SH-70, SH-50 and SH-30 helicopters. There were also half a dozen boats that looked like the Mark Five SOC boats and a dozen more that appeared to be SOC-R Riverine boats from the descriptions, a few dozen advanced Light Strike Vehicles and airborne combat vehicles a veritable mountain of advanced weapons and ammunition. They had the strike team waiting on the Jinjur and Jellia (Thomaston landing dock ships which they'd acquired, fixed up and converted to more powerful and efficient integrated electric drive systems in Ninety) nearby, but there was no way to shift this many aircraft and everything else without attracting a lot of attention... And there would be no way of avoiding a major international incident if they started a fire fight in front of this many people, most of whom almost certainly had the ear of the ones who ran their countries.

These people had some serious hardware and new aircraft they'd never heard of before which was a problem, because they hadn't managed to dig up anything on who was behind this guy yet. This arms dealer was well established, but he didn't have anything like the type of pull he'd need to get his hands on this type of hardware. Chuck sent Hank and Yuri off with a couple of the 'guards' to confirm that the aircraft were indeed functional and/or armed while he went to a spot on the main helicopter deck where it would be difficult for anyone to eavesdrop and used the satellite phone that John was carrying to call the Jinjur and tell them everything had gone to shit and they needed to find some way to quietly slip away from the resort and then call in an air strike to destroy the ships and planes. He was also going to suggest that they track down the CIA puke who at the very least, had withheld critical information they needed about the auction if he didn't outright lie to them, and make sure that he would _never_ be able to screw over anyone like this again. Anyone who asked was told that he was asking for approval to spend more.

But just as they answered, a possible way to get out of this _without_ causing an international incident or them having to fight it out with a few hundred warlords' and drug lords' guards occurred to him, and he put it to Mom, Uncle Bry and the others.


	3. Back to the Salt Mines

**Again there are unpleasant topics and homosexuality portrayed so if this offends you, please don't read it.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be more changes in the first hour as I find things that didn't come out the way I wanted them to while proof reading.  
**

* * *

"If we play this right, we should be able to expand on what we had planned to use to try and get the combat jets and anything else really dangerous from the arms dealer before the auction, me playing the demanding and threatening heir apparent to a big Russian Mob family determined to get those items to impress his father, even if it cost twice as much to get them prior to the auction. The new twist of course is that I will be taking _everything_ before the auction now, including their ships, and _I'll_ be deciding the price. When I give the signal, I need you guys to slip onto the ships without being detected and quietly overpower the hundred to hundred and twenty guards that he has here from what I can see. It will be dark soon so that should help with getting on board unnoticed. To avoid an international incident, for us anyway, you'll need to remove any form of identification from your gear before you come aboard and it would help if you sounded Russian, but you can handle that. When I get the signal that you've incapacitated the guards, I'll tell the arms dealer that I'm actually taking _everything_ , including the ships, for Four Hundred Million Dollars American and get him to confirm via the security cameras they have around the ships that he has no choice but to agree. I'll make him get all the other buyers off the ship and have his men properly secure the aircraft and weapons before they're put off. I'll push him to do that as quickly as possible but you'll need to secure the guards and anyone else who tries to make a fuss somewhere out of sight in the resort and make sure that they can't interfere ASAP."

"While you guys are doing that, Ellie and I will be making him give us legally binding paperwork to show that everything, including the ship, has been legitimately purchased with clean titles and then I'll transfer the Four Hundred Million to their nominated account using Ellie's laptop, we'll also blow smoke up his butt with the expected boasting about the Volkovich family being the new top dogs and how no-one can stand in our way to muddy the waters a little more. I'll need you guys to let Jeff and Skip know to be ready to start tracing that transfer as soon as it's initiated, and also get them to start the process to get two converted landing dock ships that are around a hundred and fifty metres long and ten thousand long tons displacement registered in the Cayman Islands to Nonestic Shipping as the Robin and Liisa with Charles Carmichael listed as their owner. After you take over the ships, you'll also need to get their crews' co-operation, preferably with money rather than threats, to help us get them to La Paz. They'll be put off there and we'll have our own people waiting to take over, along with someone to make sure there aren't any tracking devices on her... Shit! We need to do the same with those planes before we fly them out of here too! Anyway, Jeff and Skip need to get started on finding us the specific crew members we need for the ships as a matter of priority, you'll need to give them the specifics of what the crew will need to be able to operate and tell them to ask Auntie Em for help. If there's anyone on the existing crew who wants to stay on and you guys believe that they're worth hanging onto and can be trusted, let them, I'm sure we can use the help... And I'll need the Jinjur and Jellia to go back through the Panama Canal as soon as possible as the Burya and Leningrad from Saint Petersburg in Russia. I'll make sure that all the records will show that they haven't been anywhere near the Panama canal in months, but we _need_ the Burya and Leningrad to be seen to be headed east in a hurry when she leaves here..."

"So that's it, you guys will leave here on the Burya and Leningrad once we take control, taking everything but the five biggest planes, which we'll be flying out of here, with you. The ships' crews will be put off in La Paz, where we'll arrange for them to be held for about a week and then released with their passports and the airfare to get home. The Jinjur and Jellia will head back through the Panama Canal as the Burya and Leningrad and stop over at Isla Culebra for a few days at least, and once they've cleared the Canal, the Burya and Leningrad will officially vanish. Meanwhile you'll take the newly renamed Robin and Liisa up the coast to Mare Island and we'll fly everything across to Red Mountain from there. We'll need to do something to change their appearance until we've managed to cover the trail a bit."

Ellie and Anna were laughing at him. "Okay Chuck, that'll do until we can come up with a _detailed_ plan... But what's this about registering the ships in your name... And why does Sammie get _two_ of our ships named after her?"

"I'm keeping the ships. I can see them being very useful once we do our usual modifications. The Ivan Rogov especially has been done up rather nicely so I'm thinking of making her my second corporate yacht as the Liisa, but registering and using her as a working ship for Nonestic will cause less questions to be asked... and with the amount of business Nonestic is getting at the moment, having an couple of extra ships will be useful... And if I can't have her with me yet with my ships named after her I can at least hear her name more often."

That got general agreement because the logic for having extra ships was sound, and they weren't going to argue with his reasoning for the name.

* * *

It didn't take long for Hank and Yuri to confirm that while most of the smaller aircraft were stripped down and packed up for storage and transport and they only had one of each aircraft bolted together with the weapons mounted for show, the Super Tigers, Super Jets and Super Hummingbirds were _all_ complete with full weapons systems and gun and rocket pod, missile, bomb and remote turret mounting points and would be flight and combat ready when they were reassembled. Obviously someone had decided that adding weapons systems and mounts to make the planes dual purpose transport and attack aircraft would be a good selling point, and with this crowd it probably would... That brought to mind the disturbing mental image of business jets swooping in with gun pods, rocket pods or missiles firing or bombs dropping and catching their unsuspecting victims by surprise, which drove home the fact that they _had_ to get all this away from here, or destroy it to ensure that it couldn't be used that way. Hank had had a look at those SOC boats and Light Strike and airborne combat vehicles too, and they all had weapons systems and gun, missile launcher and remote turret mounting points as well.

Those ST-5s definitely were _Super_ Tigers, as they'd apparently started out with the F-5G Tigershark airframe design, then converted it into a lighter, cleaner and more agile F-35ish twin tail version with internal weapon bays using a more powerful and efficient turboramjet based on the principles of the SR-71's J58 which gave them greatly improved performance. Extensive use of titanium, carbon fibre and kevlar throughout the aircraft (including the turbofans) had resulted in aircraft which were significantly lighter than the F-5s with over twice their maximum thrust. They would reportedly supercruise at Mach 1.6 or 1.7 and reach at least Mach 2.3 on afterburner, but those turboramjets were supposedly still being improved so those figures were sure to increase, and there was another combat jet supposedly being developed to use the same engines that would be even faster. Then they had all been retrofitted with complete TF-16N cockpits, fly by wire and FADEC systems and up to date avionics systems and upgraded weapons systems. They had a problem there though, because it turned out that the man who created the Super Tigers was there to explain the aircraft to prospective buyers, but he'd worked on the Tigershark and YF-23 programs at Northrop and recognised Hank from the times he was consulting on them. Hank had tried to talk him into changing sides but he'd tried to raise an alarm when he realised that Hank was actually there to take down the auction, and he was accidentally killed in the scuffle that ensued when the guards were trying to keep him quiet. The good news was that they _did_ manage to talk the two other engineers who were there to explain the aircraft to prospective buyers into changing sides, and Mary did the same with half of the guards later.

Aside from that, the SJ-90 was a composite twin engine and twin tail version of what an AN-124 crossed with an IL-86 could be, the SJ-70 was an improved composite version of the Yak-42 M2 (lengthened about twenty feet and cleaned up aerodynamically with a cargo ramp in place of the rear airstair and the TU-154's six wheel main landing gear) (both with Airbus A320 cockpits and controls), and Bombardier's Challenger 600 designs with cargo doors, new and improved engines and rugged landing gear that should be able to handle short unpaved airstrips fine, and they'd been lengthened about twenty feet (which they'd done with their own 600 actually), and the new wings and engines and weight reductions from the composite construction reportedly gave them all much better performance and range... the construction and written specs were impressive at least, and they looked about right from their experience... and the new Challenger CL-604's glass cockpit was matched to the A320's side sticks and a pared down version of the A320 console, which was close enough to their own Challenger and Yak's set up that any of them who'd flown their planes should be able to fly these okay. Hank had talked them into letting him run all the way through the A320's startup sequence on the SJ-90 up at the airstrip and everything had gone exactly as expected. The SJ-30s appeared to be based on the Falcon 20 design with more rugged landing gear, cargo doors, T tails, new wings, more efficient engines and bigger fuel tanks, composite construction and the same mix of CL-604 and A320 cockpits as the SJ-50s... Yuri had asked why they had jets and helicopters but no prop craft and was told that the prop planes were being developed, but they still had a few teething problems that were being worked out.

The SH-30 and SH-50 helicopters were improved composite versions of the EC135 and EC145 helicopters while the SH-70 was based on the bigger HAL Dhruv version that was developed from the same MBB Bo 105 design as the Eurocopters, but they'd all been converted to single engine designs. Yuri reported that the SH-90 was an improved version of the upcoming Mil MI-38 which was an updated composite version of the MI-8/MI-17. All the helicopters had the latest version of the EC135's avionics, glass cockpit and controls, so they should be easy enough to fly for anyone who'd flown the Eurocopters... And on top of what they had for sale, each ship also had a pair of those new Russian Serna fast landing craft that were about the same size as an LCM-8 but could do thirty knots, and a dozen assorted helicopters between them. Chuck just nodded as Hank gave his report because he was using the text message function of the sat phone to tell the others to move in and answering their queries about where the cameras and guards were.

They were interrupted at that point by a commotion behind them and people shouting on the other ship. Chuck spun around, reaching for his pistol, to see that Anna had someone who looked like a Columbian drug lord down on the deck with his arm twisted up behind his back painfully and his bodyguards were running at her. Chuck had his Glock 20 drawn and aimed fair between the eyes of the guard who had his pistol out in a flash. The guy was experienced enough to recognise that he knew what he was doing and read him well enough to be sure that he wouldn't hesitate to fire if he had to so he quickly stopped, holstered his pistol and put his hands up. Out the corner of his eye Chuck saw that it was Auntie Charly disguised as a man and some of their other guys who were shouting on the other ship, obviously trying to draw more attention to the scene Anna was creating.

Chuck barked a question at Anna and she told him that this pig had grabbed her boob and tried to stick his hand up her skirt, asking if she was allowed to teach him a lesson. Chuck smiled as he said "Da! And the other one as well!" because Anna was providing just the distraction they needed to help the others slip on board without being detected!

At that, Anna let go of the sleaze and spun to meet the bodyguard who was about to tackle her. This one was either more dedicated or more stupid than the other guard though, because she had him rolling on the floor in pain from a broken arm and smashed knee in less than twenty seconds, but he was still trying to reach for his gun. When he kept going for his gun no matter what she said, Anna put paid to that idea and put him out of his misery by smashing his face in... he'd live, but it would be a while before he'd be much good for anything.

By that stage the sleaze had managed to struggle to his feet and was trying to pull his big gold plated Desert Eagle out of the holster. Chuck just shook his head, the Israelis made one hell of a lot of good gear, but those flashy Desert Eagles were just ridiculous. They performed well enough but for the size and weight, there were a hell of a lot more effective weapons (and others that were smaller and lighter too, case in point the Glock 20 he had in his hand at the moment), and the reflections off that gold plating were bound to throw your aim off, if not blind you to what was in front of you. It was generally only posturing fools like this one trying to overcompensate for their presumably inadequate equipment who carried them... He smiled again at that thought, because whether or not he _was_ inadequate in that department, the idiot was about to be emasculated, quite possibly literally.

What happened next was quite gruesome to watch, because Anna took her time and enjoyed punishing the tool. She gave him enough time to get his Desert Eagle out, then made a point of breaking most of his fingers when she took it off him, before proceeding to smash both his kneecaps and break both his arms, and then it got _really_ gruesome! She pulled his pants down and shoved his Desert Eagle up his arse (at least she didn't fire it after she did that), then she grabbed his little boy bits and almost tore them off, so that he was writhing on the floor, bleeding and screaming in pain. She finished by telling him (and everyone else in earshot) that if he ever came anywhere near her again she'd _really_ hurt him, and that she'd seen better equipment on a Chihuahua.

Chuck was still holding his pistol on the other guard, but he was too stunned by what he'd just seen to make a move.

Anna made a show of coming to Chuck to get his approval before she went to wash her hands and get herself tidied up. When she came back he gave her a hug and a kiss before taking her hand as they moved on. People were cleaning up the mess and carrying her two victims away behind them as they left.

* * *

Everyone got out of their way them after that, which was good as it made things easier, but they had to get things moving so Chuck marched up to the one who was ordering the staff about and demanded to see the man in charge. The guy was was rather full of himself for a lackey who was just relaying his Boss's orders, as he told Chuck that _he_ was the man in charge, and the Boss had far more important things to do than talk to kids. That made what came next easier for Chuck, as he needed to make another scene to keep people's attention on them rather than their strike team and convince everyone that he should be listened to, and they needed to get this done before something went wrong, so he just drew his backup pistol and kneecapped the idiot (he used his 9mm XR9 backup pistol because the Glock 20's 10mm Auto round would have blown his leg off, and he didn't want to cripple him, just make a scene). That was enough to convince the others that taking him straight to the Boss would be a very good idea, especially after they'd watched his little Asian playmate tear those other two apart.

The arms dealer tried to bluster at first, demanding reparations for shooting his employee and what Anna did to the others, Chuck let him go until he got the signal that their people had control of the ships and then gave him a glimpse of who he was on special operations missions, which shut him up quick smart. When he was quiet, Chuck barked. "Auction is cancelled, I take everything! I take ships as well to carry aircraft and weapons. Fair price is..."

He stopped and turned to whisper for a few minutes with Ellie in a Slavic dialect that there was little chance the arms dealer knew. After much pointing at items on the screen of Ellie's laptop he turned back to the arms dealer. "Fair price is Four Hundred Million Dollars American!"

The arms dealer was scared stiff of this maniac, and that crazy little puta of his as well, because he'd watched her destroy those two men like it was nothing, and one of them had been a trained guard well over twice her size, but as much as they scared him, his Boss scared him far more. The Boss was expecting him to get _at least_ Six Hundred Million for the items they had at this auction, and he was sure he could make at least a Hundred and Fifty Million over that by playing all the warlords and drug lords off against each other. And on top of that, he'd heard that the Boss had spent years and well over a Hundred and Fifty Million doing up his ships to the point where he was happy with them after he got them off the French and the Brazilians, so with whatever they cost him to get them in the first place it would have to be Two Hundred Million or more all up... This wannabe Russian Gangster was crazy if he thought he'd consider taking less than half of that. He shook his head at that thought, as he was pretty sure this kid _was_ crazy, Pedro had hardly started talking before he pulled out his pistol and shot him, and he wasn't even angry! But as scary as this kid and his puta were, from what he could see they had half a dozen guards at most, while he had over twenty times that many of the Boss's best Spetsnaz guards there to make sure the auction went smoothly. Bolstered by that thought he said. "I am afraid I must decline your most _generous_ offer Mister Volkovich, and what's more, your invitation to participate in this auction has now been revoked so get off my ship!"

Whatever reaction he expected, laughter wasn't it, obviously the kid _was_ crazy, but then he spoke. "You have cameras on ships, Yes?"

"Yes, why?"

"You look, now!"

He was confused when he first started cycling through the cameras around the two ships, but he quickly grew more and more frantic as he saw that their guards had all been taken down by intruders who outnumbered them at least two to one, and about a dozen of them were gone altogether. When he looked up, the feral smile this maniac was giving him sent shivers up his spine, he thought he knew what animals must feel like just before a tiger's jaws closed over their heads.

"I take everything including ships for Four Hundred Million Dollars American, Yes?"

The arms dealer nodded with resignation, but his fear made it more urgent. "Yes... Yes of course."

"Good! Now get other buyers off my ships and away from my planes, tell them ships and planes must be prepared for auction, and have men pack up aircraft and guns properly so that they are not damaged in transport... Hurry! I leave in two hours!"

In a last act of desperation he looked at one of his guards with a plea for help, but the man's hand didn't make it halfway to his gun before a dart grew out of his eye and a knife hilt was sticking out of his chest. The crazy puta smirked at the big guard. "I'd say you're getting slow, but you've always been slow."

The man didn't appear to take offence as he crossed the room to retrieve the two weapons, wiping them clean on the guard's shirt and taking his pistol from its holster. On the way back he looked from the pistol to the girl and smirked as he spoke for the first time. "What, you don't want to do the same to him as you did to the Columbian? Or isn't this gun big enough for you?"

She snorted as she took the dart from him and put it back into her hair. "Size isn't everything you know, but I expect that you hear that a lot, don't you?"

Chuck was fighting not to laugh at them and had to school his expression before he turned back to the arms dealer. "Why you not getting people off my ships? And I see you signal guard, we need you for deal but you have family, yes? You try again and you will not!"

At that the man scampered out of the room as fast as he could to do as he was told. When he was out of the room Ellie snorted. "Anna, I've had to stitch up just about every part of John over the last five or six years, and I can assure you that he measures up much better than the Columbian you were playing with earlier."

Anna just shrugged nonchalantly. "And that would interest me because?"

Ellie shook her head but Chuck curtly told them all to shut up because he needed to stay in character to pull this off and they were making that very difficult.

There was just enough time for them to apologise before the arms dealer returned.

* * *

Chuck and Ellie spent the next hour and a half making sure that they got all the necessary paperwork to show that everything, including the Burya and the Leningrad, had been legitimately purchased. The dealer had tried to argue that he didn't have the authority to sign a bill of sale for the ships (which they confirmed had indeed been the Orage and Ivan Rogov originally) but Ellie explained, in better English than Chuck was using, that the fact that he had been given authority to sign for everything sold at the auction had made him the owner's factor here, and therefore he _did_ have the authority to sign the ships' bill of sales. He was trying to think of another argument when something made him look up, to see a very pissed off looking Anna staring at him balefully as she cleaned her nails with the needle sharp point of the dart she'd used to kill Juan. Her message was clear and he grabbed the pen to sign the bill of sale for the ship, the Boss would probably kill him for this but if he crossed these people they'd do it here and now.

Anna had left when the arms dealer returned, because she was responsible for making sure that there weren't any tracking or monitoring devices on the planes they were taking out of there. She would also be flying one of the J70s home with John, so she was going through much the same processes as Hank had to make sure that everything behaved the same way it did on their A320s and comparing notes with Hank and Yuri (who'd be flying two of the planes back) about anything that didn't.

When Chuck and Ellie were happy that they had all the paperwork they needed, Chuck used Ellie's laptop to make the Four Hundred Million Dollar transfer to the nominated account (via a series of blind proxies so that it couldn't be back tracked of course), and Chuck had fun twisting the knife a little more by telling the arms dealer that he would be waiting with them until the rest of their people had left. The guards (the few that were staying anyway, Chuck and Ellie needed to stay in character until they left so Mary and the others had agreed that the news that the vast majority of the guards and crew had changed sides could wait until they were safely home) and their possessions and a few of the crews who had been flagged as potential trouble makers had been put off the ships and locked away in the resort somewhere and the ship was in the final stages of being readied for departure as they disembarked. Their Yak and two of the J70s had already left and the other J70s and the J90 were being readied for take off as the cars pulled up at the side of the airstrip. John ran off to the other J70 when Hank came over to fill Chuck and Ellie in on the minor differences of the check lists and controls in the J70, as they would be its pilots for the flight home, and Hank headed back to get the J90 moving as soon as Chuck and Ellie confirmed that they had it.

Ellie was on top of the pre flight check lists so Chuck left her to it and went out with Hank to wind up the act for the arms dealer, who they'd left out on the airstrip under guard. Chuck had to get back to Red Mountain as quickly as possible to clean out the accounts of the one behind this auction (strangely enough, the arms dealer couldn't seem to tell them exactly _who_ he worked for, there was something there, as if his mind had been tampered with, because he only thought of him as 'the Boss', and he hardly identified with his own name either for that matter), so the J70's slightly higher speed could make a difference, Hank would be riding herd on the other three planes to make sure they got back alright. John and Anna took off in their J70 just as they exited the plane and Hank saluted Chuck and ran for the J90 to finalise the pre-flight checks and get it in the air.

The Burya and Leningrad had disappeared around the point by the time Hank took off in the J90 about five minutes later, and less than ten minutes after that one of the men relayed Ellie's message that they were ready to go too, so Chuck told the man. "Go!" and boarded the plane. Five minutes later it was all closed up and starting it's take off roll.

* * *

As he watched the last J70 take off, the arms dealer wished he had a Stinger, or _something_ out of that mountain of weapons they'd just taken from him, but everything was taken from them, and the guards had apparently been stashed away somewhere in the resort. He snorted in derision, _guards_? They let themselves be taken completely by surprise by this Volkovich's people! As far as he knew the only shot fired in the whole affair was by Volkovich himself when he kneecapped Pedro, though from what happened to Juan, these people didn't need guns all that much. He shook his head at the way that crazy little puta had been taunting the big one about being slow, because they'd _both_ moved too fast for him to see! The only one he hadn't seen inflicting mayhem on anyone was the sister... that one was a beauty too and he normally would have wanted to bed any woman who looked like her, but she'd looked at him as if he were something foul she'd scraped off the bottom of her shoe, and more to the point, she had a killer's eyes like the other three. No, no matter how good they looked, those two weren't women, they were devils!

He sighed as he conceded that he needed to find what that bastard had done with his guards, because as useless as they were, he would need them to protect him from the rest of the buyers when they found out that they'd come all this way for nothing, though even fools like them should have worked that out when the new planes took off and the ships departed... He froze at that. Oh no! The ships! The Boss's pride and joys that he'd spent over a Hundred and Fifty Million doing up since he got them off France and Brazil... He'd lost the Boss's ships! He was more likely to be forgiven for losing the Five Hundred odd Million profit he was expected to make on what the Boss had reportedly put one hell of a lot of money and influence into putting together for this mega-auction than he was for losing the Boss's ships...

He suddenly decided that finding a hole somewhere out of the way to hide in for the next ten or twenty years sounded like a very good idea. Luckily one of the cars they drove up to the airstrip in had a full tank so he raided the other buyers' jets lined up at the airstrip for cash, valuables and guns and took off. His name was cursed worldwide in certain circles for quite a while after that though, because when the Boss couldn't find the one who had lost him over Six Hundred Million Dollars, three Spetsrota of his best Spetsnaz trained guards and crew (from what the few who returned reported about seeing bodies being dragged away by the hijackers, the rest had presumably been killed and their bodies dumped over the side when they were no longer needed as they'd all disappeared), his ships and the reputation of a visionary in the arms industry that he'd put so much into that military auction to create, he found others to punish in his stead. It only got worse when the man discovered that he'd lost _another_ Seven Hundred and Fifty odd Million US on top of that, because every account he'd had with _any_ kind of link to the account the proceeds of the auction were supposed to go into had been emptied out... The fact that he was fairly sure that that idiot hadn't been involved in this didn't stop him holding the fool responsible for what happened, so he put out a contract on him too and paid upon receipt of his head six months later.

* * *

By the time the J90, J70s and their Yak landed at Red Mountain and were run into the underground hangars there (they'd managed to wrangle a secret cold war air base buried in the Nevada Test Range out of the Air Force. The underground hangars at the base had been built to accommodate two squadrons of B-52s plus a few more of squadrons of tankers and several other large aircraft, so there was plenty of room for the six planes, and the other eighteen planes, thirty six helicopters and over three dozen LSVs and combat vehicles when the ships arrived from the resort in Mexico where the military auction had been held), Jeff and Skip were in the process of tracing where the transfer Chuck had made to the arms dealer had gone to. Chuck and Anna got changed and then took over, and quickly confirmed that the money had gone to Russia, but that was no great surprise, given the names on the ships. While Chuck was working on cleaning out any accounts linked to the one their transfer ended up in, Anna was chasing down who those accounts belonged to. It was only after he'd sent everything in those accounts (over Seven Hundred and Fifty Million US) around the world a couple of times by untraceable routes and deposited it into their accounts in the Caymans that Chuck had time to stop and notice that Anna was looking very pleased with herself. He soon found out why, it had been difficult to get through all those layers of security but she had, and all those accounts belonged to _Volkoff Industries!_ They'd recovered their money and taken another Three Hundred and Fifty odd Million Dollars, plus everything from the auction, the ships and over three hundred and fifty of his best trained men off of Alexei Volkoff (the monetary value added up to well over One and a quarter Billion Dollars' worth all up according to what the arms dealer was wailing as he was signing everything over, but even without the expected profit from the auction it had to have cost him at least close to a Billion), the bastard who'd raped and tortured Chuck and Ellie's mother!

While that was certainly reason to celebrate, and they did, the Volkoff link meant that they needed to make damned sure they'd covered their tracks, so Chuck jumped back onto the computer and carefully recorded long series of sales on everything they'd just 'bought'. Most of it would be used in public, so he made sure that they all had long and convoluted trails of ownership with plenty of dead ends registered for them. Even the items they were planning to keep secret like the SOC boats (as they'd turned out to be improved composite versions of the Mark V SOC and SOC-R boats), Sernas and LSVs and combat vehicles had their ownership trail well and truly muddied, just in case. Auntie Charly put her hand up for half of the aircraft and boats for her people, and Chuck would have agreed, but Hank already had one J30 and one H30 earmarked for their hangar at Washington Airport (once he'd made a few changes), J50s and H70s for Moffett Field and Gillikin Island and a few more planes and helicopters for the crew in LA so the numbers had to be adjusted. There was no argument about the fact that most of the Super Tigers would be staying at Red Mountain, because out there in the desert in the middle of the test range was about the only place they could be flown without attracting too much attention, and they _did_ want to fly them, they just kept one each at Los Alamitos and Tipton Field in case they needed to get somewhere urgently.

To cover up where the Liisa and Robin had come from, Chuck quickly purchased the Aleksandr Nikolayev and Ouragan from the Russian and French Navies (with the records modified to show that the purchase proceedings had been completed prior to the military auction), cleaned them up enough to look like the Liisa and Robin from a distance and made sure that they were seen around European waters before they were sailed back to the States. He purchased the smaller Tapir class large landing ship Ilya Azarov and Bougainville landing ship dock with the Aleksandr Nikolayev and Ouragan as he'd seen how useful smaller ships with shallower draft could be, and the price was right. They had been a little worried about taking unknown ships across the Atlantic like that but the crews reported that they had performed and handled surprisingly well, which made Chuck second guess his plans to scrap them as part of the cover up to hide the Liisa and Robin until they'd been modified. The plan had been to hide the Liisa and Robin for a while and when they had time, change their configuration enough to ensure that they wouldn't be identified as Volkoff's missing ships. The glowing reports from the guys who ran them up the coast piqued their interest though, so by the time the two ships were unloaded at Mare Island, it had been decided that the Kathleen and Alexis were both being kept, they'd just need to make sure that they weren't seen together until they managed to take Volkoff down... Everyone laughed at Chuck when he had the Ilya Azarov and Bougainville re-registered as the Emma and Su, but he just said that the naming was according to size, not age.

* * *

When they started working on setting up the organisation to protect the family in December 1989, Bry had brought in an Army aircraft specialist and Navy engineering specialist he knew through SAD operations who were the best in the business to advise them on what to look for, because Charly had already made the point that airport and naval facilities, especially International facilities, would offer them the best opportunity to hide their activities, because access to the air side was generally limited to those who had a valid reason to be there... And they would need their own planes and ships to get around without advertising where they were going, so the airport and port facilities would work for that too. The men he brought in were Hank Higgins and Mike Cooper, and of course Di, being the suspicious woman she was, had investigated Army Aviation Master Warrant Officer Henry Higgins and Navy Engineering Chief Warrant Officer Michael Cooper. What she discovered was quite impressive, the Army had sent Mister Higgins to the Air Force Test Pilot School for the technical side of the training in Seventy One (though he was also quite an accomplished pilot of many forms of aircraft, both fixed and rotary wing), and while he was there he had been selected to participate in the CIA's Quiet Bird Project. By all reports he'd been instrumental in the success of that project in Seventy Two, but he'd apparently publicly embarrassed a General after he completed Test Pilot School and graduated as an aeronautical engineer and test pilot, so from then on he had generally been relegated to drudge work, though they hung onto him for when they had a problem that required his genius to fix, and he was often loaned out to the CIA.

Aside from being black, Mike Cooper's story was somewhat similar, he'd been the Navy's go to engineering specialist for amphibious warfare vessels in the Vietnam War and everything they'd been involved in since, but like Mister Higgins he appeared to have a problem with authority because he had told an Admiral that he was a damned fool, and why, in front of some very powerful and well connected Senators in the closing phases of the Vietnam War. Influential people in the Navy recognised that they needed Mike's abilities to develop their amphibious warfare capabilities, so instead of having the uppity nigger shot (as the Admiral and one of the Southern Senators were demanding) or thrown out of the Navy, he'd been relegated to the worst posts they could find for him ever since, so that he'd be seen to be being punished, but they could recall him whenever they were working on developments to their amphibious warfare vessels or they had critical amphibious operations where they needed the vessels to perform well and be reliable.

After they explained what they were trying to do, Hank asked what their budget was for this, but Di had tried to skirt around the question until Charly snapped at her.

"Get a grip Di! You know that Bry wouldn't have brought Hank and Mike to us unless he trusts them and I trust Bry's judgement, even if you don't! Hank can't help us unless he knows whether we've got enough money to do what we're after so I vote that we give him the damned information he needs to do that!"

Di was even less happy when Roan was the first one to agree with Charly, but she grudgingly conceded the point and told Hank how much they could get their hands on between them within a day or two.

The number she told him shocked Hank, but when he'd recovered he nodded. "Yep, you'll definitely be able to do what you want with that much at your disposal! Okay... we should be able to get some of the aircraft you need reassigned from the AMARC to your group and do them up, but with that sort of money your best bet for transport aircraft and maintenance facilities will be the airline bankruptcy proceedings and auctions, because if you've got the admission price the airlines' assets are often being sold off for pennies on the dollar at those things. I can give you some pointers on where to find out about the auctions, and if you bring me the information about what's being sold at a given auction, I'll try to point you at the best planes and other things to go after. It will probably take you a while to get what you're after though because they quite often change the sale order around, sell some items off before the auction and the like, but I'll do my best to identify the items that have to go together for you so if a key requirement is gone you can skip the rest and move on to the next viable option..."

He trailed off because they were all staring at him. None of them were fools, and they knew that from what he'd just said that this was going to be a very hit and miss affair, and they'd be most likely missing far more than they hit. The problem with that was that they couldn't afford to take too long to set this up, because they needed it to protect the vulnerable ones in their group like Mary's children. Roan looked at him thoughtfully for a while and then spoke. "Would I be correct in believing that this would go a lot better if we had an aircraft expert there with us to do this Mister Higgins?"

"Well yeah, of course, but why are you asking that?"

"I must admit that Diane used her connections to look into your background when Bryan first recommended you... and from what we saw in your records, I don't believe that I'd be too out of line if I said that it appears that you are rather less than satisfied with what the Army has you doing for them most of the time?"

Hank gritted his teeth. "You could say that!"

"In that case, could we possibly interest you in becoming our group's aircraft expert?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Diane was promoted to Major when she successfully concluded her last assignment a few weeks ago. She is currently in the process of establishing a... well to put not too fine a point on it, she is establishing a spy group and will be using the resources of our little spy family to ensure that it outshines other intelligence groups. Now a group of this nature will obviously be conducting field operations and when they do, they will need to be able to rely on whatever they're using to get into the target site and back out again, and much of the time that will involve aircraft. Your record says that there's no-one better than you at fixing, maintaining and improving aircraft of all types, so if you're agreeable with the idea, Diane will get you reassigned to her group as soon as she's created it, but in the mean time, would you be prepared to accompany whichever of us goes to these auctions to try and get what we're after, and advise us on what to go after and what to pass up? You see personal... or more to the point _family_... issues have now made this an extremely urgent matter, and we simply can't afford to take too long getting this set up and working because we need it in place to protect the ones who are currently at risk."

Hank just looked at him for a while and then said. "So let me get this straight... The real reason you're in such a hurry to set all of this up is to protect vulnerable members of your... family... and Major Beckman here is also setting up a spy group to work with you. And when she gets that done, she will get me reassigned to her group to ensure that the aircraft you're using for your missions will get you in... and out again... Is that right Major?" He turned to look at Di as he asked that last.

She nodded tersely. "I would have preferred that this had been discussed with me _before_ it was proposed to you Mister Higgins, but yes... what Roan said is true. The reason for the urgency to get this set up is that we need to get the at risk members of our family to safety, so if you agree to assist us in doing that, and wish to come over to take over responsibility for our aircraft and possibly other vehicles for us, as soon as my group is created, I promise to do what I can to get you transferred into the group in that role."

Hank looked around the group, taking in their reactions to this, then turned back to Di and nodded. "Okay, you have your aircraft specialist then Major."

Roan thanked him and turned to Mike. "I _am_ sorry Mister Cooper, we appear to have been ignoring you but that was on no way intentional I assure you. As you will have no doubt surmised, Diane had you investigated as well as Mister Higgins and from what I saw, your situation appears to be much the same as his... You are the best Engineer the Navy has for amphibious warfare vessels, but what they have you doing much of the time can hardly be satisfying for a man of your abilities. Therefore, with your permission, I would like to ask that Major Beckman offers you the same opportunity as she did Mister Higgins, to become our Naval Engineering specialist and transfer into her group once it has been established... Diane?"

Di glared at him, because that didn't give her any choice in the matter, but she'd accepted Bry and Charly's points by then, these men were the best in their fields and Bry had obviously trusted them enough to bring them in, so she nodded again. "Indeed, if you choose to join us and assist us with your experience and expertise in Naval engineering matters Mister Cooper, as with Mister Higgins I promise that I will do everything I can to get you transferred into my group as soon as it's created."

Mike nodded, amused by the by-play between these people, but Bry was good people and he obviously thought a lot of them. They didn't seem too bad and their cause was good, even if this Montgomery guy and Major Beckman seemed to have sticks up their arses, and Hank had already thrown in with them so... "I'm not quite sure what it is you need from me Ma'am, but yes... I'm in too."

Roan looked at Charly. "Charlene, you were the one who originally raised these requirements, perhaps you could enlighten Mister Cooper?"

Charly nodded. "Okay Mike, as Roan said, we're setting up a covert intelligence group which will be operating all over the world and we need to be able to rely on whatever vehicles we use to get us in and out of the locations where we're operating. Much of the time those vehicles will be aircraft, but many of the aircraft we'll be using, such as helicopters, will have limited range, so we'll need to have a base of some sort close enough for them to operate out of. Other times we'll need to use boats or land vehicles which will have similar constraints, so we're going to need amphibious warfare vessels of some sort to provide that capability, and bases to operate them out of too for that matter. That's why Bry chose you Mike, because you're obviously the best there is when it comes to amphibious warfare vessels."

Mike nodded, appreciating the way she just told him everything straight. "Okay, that tells me what I need to know, thank you Ma'am. While commercial aircraft may work for some of what you want to do though, as you said you'll need amphibious warfare vessels for what you described, and the best place to get _them_ will be the Navy's mothball fleets. I can think of a number of vessels off the top of my head that would do the job, but anything of that type in the mothball fleets will be steam powered. We found in Vietnam and other conflicts that steam plants often take too long to get up to operational status from cold in combat situations, so if we need to be able to rely on them like you say anything we use is going to have to be converted to diesel and or gas turbines... which will cost millions for vessels the size of the ones we're talking about. I oversaw the conversion of Thomaston Landing Dock Ships and Wichita oilers from steam to diesel electric and gas drive systems and modified other oilers, tank landing ships, landing craft and some Soviet Tarantuls to get them up to scratch for spook operations in the Seventies and Eighties, so I can do that for whatever we pick up if you get me the right facilities."

Everyone smiled and nodded at that, because the money wasn't a problem for them and he obviously knew how to deliver what they needed.

Charly responded. "That won't be a problem Mike."

Mike just nodded and went on.

"You obviously want to do all this under the radar, but converting the power plants of amphibious warfare vessels that size requires major engineering facilities. These base closures everyone's up in arms about at the moment offer some possibilities in that respect though, because if we can identify the facilities we need and Major Beckman can get her group created in time, with any luck we'll be able to get those facilities transferred to her group and set up accredited defence contractors to sell them off to before the base closures are finalised. That way your defence contractors will legally own the facilities so they won't be effected by the base closures and they can't be taken off you because the precedence has been set for that with other major defence contractors like Lockheed. The facility in San Francisco where I did the other conversions would be perfect for converting your vessels to diesel or turbines and it's already on the closure list, along with the adjoining Naval Air Station, and if I'm reading you right, I can think of a few other bases that you'll be interested in as well, especially if you can manage to get what else they have there included in the deal..." He glanced at Bry. "Bry knows some of the ones I mean."

Bry nodded with a grin, he did indeed!

They were all grinning now, because that was brilliant! Di responded first. "I can see that you and Hank are going to be great additions to our group Mike, and call me Di... you too Hank... because you're both part of our group now and we'll be working together quite a bit to get everything the two of you have just described done."

* * *

Di sniping good naturedly at Bry about why he couldn't have gotten them construction engineers to build their base as well while everyone was celebrating a good start with Mike and Hank brought grins to both Mike and Hank's faces. Most of them missed that, but Charly didn't because she'd been talking to Hank, she grabbed his arm and snapped. "You two know people who fit what we need for that, who are they?"

That had everyone's attention and Mike waved to Hank to go first (partly because Hank's pained look was saying that the grip Charly had on his arm was _quite_ firm).

"Well I can't say that I actually _know_ him, but I was introduced to an Army Engineer who was instrumental in the construction of some secret underground bases for the Air Force when I was working on an aircraft upgrade project with a buddy of mine at one of those bases in the early Seventies and he was there organising extensions to the base to house their growing fleet... Jimmy seemed like an upright guy and I know that Joe had a lot of respect for him. He didn't give any secrets away but from what he was telling us about some of the jobs he'd done over a few beers, he'd be useful for something like this..."

Mike looked thoughtful at that. "Jimmy who Hank?"

"Jimmy Green."

Mike nodded. "If he's the same Jimmy Green I was told about, and it sounds like he is, he'd be useful alright... The guy I know is Pops Brown, or Commander Robert Brown, retired, of the Naval Civil Engineer Corps if you want to be formal. Pops started out as a Seabee in World War Two and was made a Limited Duty Officer in Korea, he got up to Commander before he retired about six months ago. The thing is, Pops was involved in the creation of the Supply and Repair Facility and Air Station at Mare Island, the place up in San Francisco I was talking about, and either created or extended the facilities at most of those covert bases Bry's seen... Actually you've met Pops Bry, I introduced you to him on Mageshima in Seventy Five... He was bossing the crew who were building the third runway there..."

It took Bry a while to put a face to the guy he was talking about but then he nodded.

"Anyway... Jimmy Green's name came up because a lot of those covert bases have massive underground boathouses... well _ship_ houses would be a more accurate name for them... hangars and the like, and concrete runways that have been coloured to match the dirt to help hide the facilities they have there, and Pops was telling me about this Army Engineer who'd come up with most of that, and how he'd worked with Jimmy on a lot of those projects, as well as his father in World War Two. I don't know Jimmy, but I _do_ know Pops, and if Pops vouches for him as expect he will, I'd be happy to trust him... Even if we can't get Jimmy though, I'd put my money on Pops being the man you need to get this base of your's built, and I know that he's kept in contact with Jimmy and a lot of the guys who have worked on building those bases because he talks about them when I see him."

Most of them were looking thoughtful at that point and Hank nodded. "Yeah, that's definitely the same Jimmy Mike, the runways at the base where I met him were coloured like that and that base had a massive underground hangar."

Di gave Bry a significant look and he nodded. "Mike, do you think you could contact Pops and see if he'll talk to us? As we've said, we're racing the clock with this. We've acquired a site in Los Angeles where we want to build our base, but we need people to build it for us and we'd rather nor use any of the normal contractors because we don't want people to know where we are."

Mike looked at him for a moment and then nodded. "I can call him now if you'd like?"

Two days later, Pops Brown and Jimmy Green were looking at the taped off row of half destroyed houses and burst out laughing, because these people didn't do things by halves! Jimmy climbed down into some of the holes to get a closer look at the damage and Bry told him what they were after while Pops got on the phone to organise what he needed to fence the site off and call in the men he wanted for this job. Like Hank, he had been shocked when he was told what sort of money they had available to do the job, but being given carte blanche to get the job done right and as quickly as possible would be a nice change after nearly fifty years of fighting the bureaucracy in the Navy...

He just hoped that they came up with a better name for this construction company he was supposedly heading up now, because he didn't really want to be known as the boss of Cinders Construction.

* * *

Over the next few weeks, Hank and Charly fed Roan what he needed to wrangle the deals to pick up all of Emerald Air's company rights, branding and operating certificates and the TranStar facility at Houston Hobby Airport. While they were in Texas, Roan also had fun blackmailing the owners of Braniff International with the proof that they were guilty of massive fraud to make them legally sign their sixteen Airbus A Three Twenties over to the Cinders Corporation for the pittance _they'd_ supposedly paid for them in their own bankruptcy proceedings. Hank had also given Di the information she'd need to get eight Little Birds, three C-11s, three C-133B Cargomasters, two C-141B Starlifters and eight TAV-8A Harrier trainers, plus a modified AN-12, IL-76, Agusta A109C and Mil MI-17 he knew had come from the CIA's Evergreen operation at Marana Field, and because of the deals that would have to be made to get one of the bases they wanted, twelve F-106B interceptors and a KC-135A Stratotanker reassigned to them from the AMARC as soon as the group was created so that he could start rebuilding them the way he wanted.

While they were doing that, Mike had been working on what they needed to get the relevant facilities assigned to them and Roan and Jack were getting their new company, Emerald City, established as an accredited defence contractor as quick as they could.

* * *

As soon as the Spectre group and Emerald City were established in January Ninety, with Hank and Jimmy as technical consultants, Di as the commander of the Spectre Group, Buck as the boss of Emerald City, Charly as his advisor and Roan as Emerald City's lawyer (Bernard Larouche, senior partner at Larouche and Marks), they got everything put through for Tipton Army Airfield in Maryland (which Jimmy told them had been had been put on the 1988 Base Realignment and Closure Commission list less than seven years after he oversaw the expansion of the base and extension of the runway and taxiway to 6800 feet to handle jet transports, including upgrading the taxiway to allow it to serve as a second runway if required) to be assigned to the Spectre Group to give Di access to Fort Meade and the NSA for work and then immediately legally sold off to Emerald City to lock it in.

This was actually first military property the Spectre Group acquired under their plan, so they used its acquisition to create the frameworks to get their other bases, like selling the benefits to Fort Meade and the NSA of having an active joint use military use Airfield close by... it officially became Tipton Field, Headquarters of the Special Projects and Tactical Research Group. They also organised for the Spectre Group to be allocated the land and access they needed to establish and operate facilities in the Los Alamitos Armed Force Reserve Center. The land was allocated to the Spectre group and then legally sold off to Emerald City to build and maintain a large aircraft maintenance hangar complex and operate a fleet of aircraft out of there. The people running Los Alamitos suspected that they were some sort of Janet airline or Air America operation from the guards and type of aircraft and people they had coming in and out of there and the fact that they were basically _called_ a Spook group so they didn't ask too many questions, which suited them just fine.

They went though much the same process to get the mostly disused Mare Island Naval Supply and Repair Facility that was part of the Mare Island Naval Shipyard. The Supply and Repair Facility included Dry Docks 3 and 4 which were big enough to take aircraft carriers, fourteen aircraft carrier size berths (six with the piping to connect Navy oilers to the ship and aircraft refuelling systems), about six thousand feet of wharf frontage that stretched from the South Piers to the end of the island and all the cranes, engineering buildings, dredge, floating dry docks, floating cranes, barges etc, twenty three assorted LCT Fives and Sixes they'd made up in World War II to be used as ferries for the civilian employees and the five Mispillion class oilers associated with the facilities there as it had been on the 1988 BRAC list. While they were at it, they had Naval Air Station Mare Island which stretched along the San Pablo Bay side of the 'island' transferred to them as well, because the NAS had also been on the 1988 BRAC list. The Navy had had the NAS built in World War II to allow men, parts and equipment to be flown straight to the Shipyard to get ships and subs into action or back into action faster, and as a departure point for flights across the Pacific. Pops had fun telling them the stories about how pissed off the officers had been when the Seabees levelled most of the hills at the end of Mare Island where their golf club had been to make room for the new Ship Repair Facility and Naval Air Station after America got into the war, and provide the material to move the shoreline far enough out into San Pablo Bay to build a substantial NAS which took up much of the San Pablo Bay side of the island and was high enough not to be inundated with water driven in from San Pablo Bay in storms. The Marines had apparently been more philosophical about their pistol and rifle ranges and other facilities being moved... twice!... but then they were used to being pushed around and they were having fun blowing things up.

As the requirements given to the Army Air Force Officer who designed the NAS (In a rare display of inter service cooperation for the time, the Army had offered the services of their best airfield designer and the Navy accepted. Louis Green was an Army Air Corps Pilot, but his family's construction business had earned the reputation of being the people to go to to get roads that would hold up built through the worst conditions, deserts, marshland, mountains, tundra, wherever everyone else failed they succeeded. Louis had tried to make his own path in life by becoming a pilot but he got dragged back into the family business when he tried to correct mistakes he could see being made in the airfield construction at a base he was posted to, and he became the Army's go to man for questions about airfield design and construction. As a result of this, Green Construction became a major player in Airport construction after the war.) was that it was to be a high use military airport handling high levels of domestic air transport traffic to and from the Shipyard as well as being the departure point for long distance flights across the Pacific (which he knew would almost certainly mean that many of those planes would be over max take off weight to squeeze in extra fuel for the long haul across the ocean), it was built with two parallel paved runways two hundred feet wide and over twelve hundred feet apart so that they could operate concurrently without interfering with each other, and a control tower up on all that was left of the hills at the end of the island to direct the air traffic. Originally Runway Number One was eighty nine hundred feet long and Runway Number Two was eighty eight hundred, and the Navy was certain that with runways that long it would be able to handle any military transport planes the US would be using in the war, and more traffic than would ever come through the Air Facility. By the end of the war though, more land had had to be taken away from the Marine Camp to allow the runways to be extended by half as much again. They'd also had to convert the taxiway up the middle into a third runway, add more taxiways and rebuild and reinforce the original runways because the volume of heavily laden transports they were handling was making them fall apart. Runway One became thirteen thousand eight hundred feet long, the new Runway Two thirteen thousand seven hundred and fifty and Runway Three (which was the rebuilt Runway Two) thirteen thousand seven hundred, because the runways were often in almost constant use and the airfield was being often used as the departure point for the heavily laden C-74s flying across the Pacific, they took a lot longer to get off the ground because they had over twice the take off and landing weights of the C-54s, the heaviest transports in existence when the airfield was built, and using less power and longer take off runs left them with more fuel and therefore a bigger safety margin for the flight. The Navy's big brass recognised that Louis's forethought in Forty Two had stood them in good stead through the war, so they overrode the senior officers who were arguing that they should only be adding what was needed to address the current problem and approved his bold proposal to make the runways over fifty percent longer in one go, giving the Mare Island Naval Air Station the longest runways in America at the time. Thanks to this the runways handled the progressively bigger and heavier C-97, C-124, C-133 and C-141 transports that came into service after World War Two without undue trouble and no further extensions were needed before it largely fell out of use in the Eighties after the Marine Camp at Mare Island was closed.

After all the traffic that went through the NAS in World War Two, Korea and Vietnam though, even the fact that it had been quite capably handling the biggest US military aircraft since 1962 in this configuration wasn't enough to stop it being essentially shut down after the Marine Barracks closed in the mid Eighties because it was fairly remote and the fact that its only land access was through an active Naval facility prevented it being be opened to public use, so it had been allowed to deteriorate. That was why they organised to have some currently unused maintenance hangars at Naval Air Station Moffett Field transferred to them as well so that they would be able to fly into Moffett Field and then use the helicopters and other vehicles they kept there to get to Mare Island until they managed to get the runways fixed up and operational (with Louis consulting on the job), it wouldn't hurt to have two access points for a city as big as San Francisco anyway. Naval Air Station Moffett Field _had_ been included in the committee's closure recommendations so they wanted to make sure that they got those hangars transferred to them before the base was closed.

They also organised for the Dyer Island Naval Auxiliary Supply and Repair Facility and Auxiliary Air Facility (taking up most of the island) on Maine's remote north coast to be transferred to the Spectre group, because they were on the closure list as well, and word was that the Navy was planning to save its efforts to fight for those bases that they considered important. Dyer Island had been established in World War II as a resupply station for the Navy's ships in the northern Atlantic, and an emergency landing strip and refuelling facility for planes crossing the Atlantic from England. Through the war the runways and air field facilities and berthing and supply and repair facilities had been expanded to handle bigger planes and greater requirements, and they were expanded further during the Cold War to handle big jets and serve as a covert base for the Navy's ships and aircraft involved in electronic intelligence gathering. With the inevitable end of the Soviet Union and therefore the Cold War coming though, most regarded the need to maintain the Dyer Island Auxiliary Supply and Repair Facility and Auxiliary Air Facility to have ended, and it was a sensitive issue due to its activities in the Cold War. Strategic Air Command still maintained a separate facility with a large underground hanger for a wing of tanker aircraft and squadron of interceptors on the island and separate agreements were signed for them to retain use of the runways and fuel facilities there.

The Amchitka Naval Auxiliary Supply and Repair Facility and Amchitka Auxiliary Air Facility which encompassed Amchitka Island in the Rat Islands halfway between Alaska and Kamchatka were much the same, except that they'd used the remote location and grossly exaggerated reports of the nuclear testing there to cover up their true nature and keep people away. They hadn't originally been planning to make much use of Amchitka as they were mainly acquiring the facilities to get the vessels and equipment that came with them, but they found that the measures the government had taken to keep the facility from being noticed were still quite effective, and as well as being a good staging base between the west coast of the US and Japan, the island had its own charms that appealed to their people who didn't much like the hotter weather further south.

The Isla Culebra Naval Auxiliary Supply and Repair Facility and Auxiliary Air Facility and Isla Culebra Marine Training Facility, which together included the entire Culebra Archipelago in Puerto Rico, were also on their list. The Seabees had blasted a wide channel through the coral reefs and shoals on the approaches to Ensenada Honda and removed any shallow areas of Ensenada Honda in World War II to provide safe passage into the bay for US Navy ships to use it as a safe harbor in hurricane season, because Ensenada Honda was touted as being 'the most hurricane secure harbour in the Caribbean' (though the Navy questioned this claim in Eighty Nine when the island and many ships in the bay were devastated by Hurricane Hugo, which made them even less inclined to hang onto Isla Culebra). They ostensibly built the Auxiliary Supply and Repair Facility and Auxiliary Air Facility on the island in the war to serve US ships and planes, but it was more to justify the considerable amount they had expended making Ensenada Honda into a safe harbour for US Navy ships. The Supply and Repair facility and Air Facility there saw little use during the war so after the war the Navy decided to make better use of the investment they'd made there and stopped using the Culebra Archipelago as a gunnery and bombing range, instead building a proper Marine training facility on the island. As with Dyer Island though, the runways and supply and repair facilities had been expanded during the Cold War as the island was re-purposed to serve as a covert base for Navy aircraft and ships that were involved in electronic intelligence gathering and other covert activities. This meant that with the end of the Cold War coming, most regarded Isla Culebra as something that they needed to bury too.

In Nineteen Seventy, after Qaboos bin Said al Said deposed his father as the Sultan of Oman, the American government had made a deal with him, offering assistance to modernise his country in exchange for him signing over the island of Al-Sawda to the United States in perpetuum. They then turned Al-Sawda into another covert Naval Auxiliary Supply and Repair Facility and Auxiliary Air Facility. As with their other covert bases, it had been expanded and upgraded through the Cold War, but now it was a political hot potato.

The same was true for the Mageshima Naval Auxiliary Supply and Repair Facility and Auxiliary Air Facility in Japan. Just after the World War II, the US Navy bought the small uninhabited island just south of the main islands of Japan (they only paid a pittance for it but they did buy it outright) to give their electronic intelligence gathering planes and ships somewhere to be based and resupplied and this was also expanded to include other covert activities. The island was closer to the major island of Tanegashima than than they liked, but it was uninhabited, and big and flat enough to build an airfield with runways that were long enough to cater for any current or proposed US Military aircraft, and from experience they added an extra few thousand feet to cover the bigger planes that would doubtless be coming. They had to build the supply and repair facility on the Tanegashima side coast of the island too, because the waters in the strait between the islands were calmer, and that was the only part of the coastline with suitable landforms to build a harbour, but everyone except for the fishermen did as they were told and stayed away from the island. Aside from the fishermen, the only times the Japanese came on the island was when people needed to be airlifted to the main islands and the planes couldn't land at Tanegashima Airport. Keeping Mageshima separate from the Japanese like that had actually made it one of the most popular US bases in Japan, because just about all of the major bases were plagued with scandals to do with the servicemen interfering with the locals, not to mention the crimes committed against Japanese people... but with the end of the Cold War, the BRAC committee flagged Mageshima for closure because on the face of it, the bigger bases nearby made it superfluous. Like Dyer Island, Amchitka, Isla Culebra and Al-Sawda, Mageshima was pretty much tailor made for their requirements so they got it transferred to the Spectre group as well.

Keflavik was more complicated, because Naval Air Station Keflavik and the Keflavik Naval Search and Rescue Facility didn't occupy their own island like the rest of the bases, NAS Keflavik shared runways with Keflavik International Airport and the Search and Rescue Facility was in a quiet little cove just up the coast from Keflavik. There were also other commitments of the US government that they'd have to assume responsibility for, because the agreements that they'd made with the Icelandic government to keep their bases there after World War II required them to maintain a presence there for air defense and marine search and rescue operations. This was what they needed the F-106Bs for, because the current agreement called for at least four to six interceptors to be maintained there, and the Air Force had already announced that they they were removing the four F-15s and the air and maintenance crews that they had based at Keflavik, using the proposed base closure as an excuse to pull out of their duty to maintain a presence. The agreement only required at least four interceptors, it didn't specify what interceptors, and Hank knew where he could get what he needed to seriously upgrade those old Six Bs.

* * *

The decision to transfer the Mare Island Supply and Repair Facility in the Mare Island Naval Shipyard and everything associated with it, Naval Air Station Mare Island, the hangars at Naval Air Station Moffett Field and Naval Air Station South Weymouth, the Keflavik Search and Rescue Facility and Naval Air Station, the Dyer Island Auxiliary Supply and Repair Facility and Auxiliary Air Facility, Amchitka Naval Auxiliary Supply and Repair Facility and Auxiliary Air Facility, Al-Sawda Naval Auxiliary Supply and Repair Facility and Auxiliary Air Facility, Mageshima Naval Auxiliary Supply and Repair Facility and Auxiliary Air Facility and the Isla Culebra Naval Auxiliary Supply and Repair Facility and Auxiliary Air Facility and the Isla Culebra Marine Training Facility to the Spectre group was an easy one for the Navy, because they had formal agreements which allowed them to retain agreed use of the facilities at Mare Island, Keflavik, Dyer Island, Amchitka, Al-Sawda, Mageshima and Isla Culebra on request, but they had officially disposed of them, _and_ parts of Moffett Field and South Weymouth as well, which would help weight the scales in their favour when it came to arguing for them to keep the facilities that they wanted. The fact that everything was immediately sold off to their defence contractor Emerald City didn't effect the formal agreements with the Navy, because that had been written into both the sale contracts and the agreements, but as Mike had said, legally selling them to their contractor _did_ guarantee that the facilities could not be taken from them, any more than their facilities at Tipton Field and Los Alamitos could.

The process to get the floating dry docks, cranes and the like and the LCTs built in World War II as ferries for the civilian employees at Mare Island officially decommissioned and formally reassigned to the Spectre group had been painful, but that allowed them to sell all of them off to Gillikin Salvage without any issues once it was completed.

Keflavik, Amchitka, Al-Sawda, Mageshima, Isla Culebra and Dyer Island had been an even easier decision to sign over than Mare Island had been for the Navy, because they all had ADFM3 class medium auxiliary floating dry docks that had been lengthened and converted into the equivalent of auxiliary repair docks with enclosed bows and stern doors in the early Sixties, floating cranes, floating workshops and two Natick class tugs, plus one Diver class rescue and salvage ship each at Keflavik, Amchitka and Dyer Island and two each at Isla Culebra, Mageshima and Al-Sawda that they'd maintained at the facilities to salvage and repair the ships based there because they were paranoid about spies among the civilians working in the regular ship repair facilities. As the Cold War progressed they'd also added De Soto County class tank landing ships and Alatna T1 oilers that had been upgraded to more powerful and efficient CODLAG (combined diesel-electric and gas) or diesel electric drive systems, Witchita T2 oilers which had been converted to CODLAG drive systems for improved performance and simpler and more economical operation, two or three Single Anchor Leg Mooring units and Beach Termination Units to offload the jet fuel and diesel from the oilers, Soviet Taranul corvettes that had been captured in the late Seventies in a covert operation where they had staged a massive explosion to utterly destroy the naval facility in the Capsian Sea where they were located to look like an accident to cover up the fact that they'd removed a number of warheads and vessels that they wanted to examine, the Thomaston Landing Dock Ships (plus the Point Barrow Cargo Dock ship at Keflavik) that Mike had converted to CODLAG drive systems (all of which had supposedly been scrapped in the Seventies and Eighties), an LCU1646 and a dozen aluminium LCM-8s each (all upgraded to more powerful and efficient diesel electric drive systems), and Wind class icebreakers at Keflavik, Amchitka and Dyer Island. These... _especially_ the modified Wichitas, De Soto Counties, Tarantuls, Thomastons, LCUs and LCMs... were a very sensitive issue for the Navy and the intelligence bodies that they'd been operated for when the Cold War was winding up, so the Navy was only too happy to sign all these officially non-existent assets over to the Spectre group to dispose of as they wished, so long as they never mentioned here they'd come from. The Tarantuls in particular were interesting, because as well as being converted to CODLAG drive systems and getting bigger tanks, they'd had their deck guns removed, a helipad built over the rear deck and the deckhouse and wheelhouse were extended forward, so their appearance was altered enough to stop them being recognised (which was obviously the intention). The De Soto Counties, Thomastons, LCUs, LCTs and LCMs, Wichitas, Alatnas, Mispillions, icebreakers, rescue and salvage ships, tugs, floating dry docks, cranes etc were all registered to either Nonestic Shipping or Gillikin Salvage, but the Tarantuls didn't fit into either the shipping or salvage roles, so they just cleaned them up and registered them as the corporate yachts of their six corporations. Chuck named them after the first daughters (that he knew of) of his generation of their extended family so they became the Samara, Bai, Eleanora, Caitlin, Josephine and Olivia. Emma immediately grabbed the Olivia for the Phoenix Corporation so that Chuck would take the Samara for the Carmichael Corporation, and Ellie thanked Auntie Charly when she took the Eleanora for the Cinders Corporation so that she could take the Caitlin as Hunter Corp's yacht, Roan took the Bai for the La Mancha Corporation and Jack took the Josephine for the Spectre Corporation yacht.

* * *

Within a few months after their initial meeting, Di was the Commander of the Spectre ( _Spec_ ial Projects and _T_ actical _R_ esearch) group, and Hank, Mike, Jim Green, Emma, Sue, Ellie and Chuck were all assigned to the Group. There was a lot of work to be done to get all the commercial properties and operating certificates transferred to Emerald City and establish Emerald Air as a legitimate air cargo, leisure charter and wet lease company around the world (and establishing Gillikin Salvage, Nonestic Shipping and Amaland Constructions as well).

This meant that Hank, Mike, Charly and Roan were spending a lot of time with Emma, Chuck and Ellie, giving them the information they needed to get all that done. Between Chuck, and then Ellie, starting to call Hank and Mike 'Uncle Hank' and 'Uncle Mike' almost immediately after they joined the group and Chuck's infectious enthusiasm for all the technical details of aircraft and ships (everything really) though, Chuck and Ellie quickly won Hank and Mike's loyalty and affection, and they would do anything for them, so everyone in the group knew that while Major Diane Beckman may be their commanding officer, their first loyalty was to Chuck and Ellie, especially Chuck.

* * *

 **A/N: Yes, I realise that in _OUR_ world, they didn't create a Naval Air Station at the end of Mare Island, but as I've pointed out a few times, this ain't our world! And for that matter, I believe that the argument that the Navy would have wanted to be able to rush parts and equipment straight to the Shipyard in order to get ships and subs finished or fixed and back into action faster is a valid one. It's not my fault that they didn't think of it in our world. ;^)**

 **Also, the Mare Island Shipyard is different in this world, dry docks 3 & 4 are aircraft carrier size and have been moved down near the expanded South Piers with the rest of the ****Supply and Repair Facility.**


	4. Familia

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale.**

* * *

Hank, Charly and Roan hadn't been sitting idle while all the work to set up the bases was going on, as soon as they had ownership of the old Transtar headquarters at Houston Hobby, it was renamed to the Emerald Air headquarters and Charly, Katy, Buck, Hank and his crew and a few dozen of their other people who were in the wind moved in to set up shop and get ready for the aircraft that were being reassigned to them from the AMARC. Phoebe stayed in Pennsylvania with her mother, Ricky and her very pregnant daughter in law.

As soon as the aircraft began arriving from the AMARC, Hank and his crew dove into the job of getting the C-11s flying, because the team needed to be able to get around, and the rest of them got a crash course in assisting with major aircraft reconstructions. The eight TAV-8A Harrier trainers were destined to sit for a while, but Hank wrangled a dozen Tyne RTY Thirty Two turboprops, thirty modified CFM56-2s and other parts he needed to upgrade the Cargomasters, Starlifters, Stratotanker and Six Bs from his buddy in the Air Force. He knew that the IL-76 had already been upgraded to the modified CFM56s and the AN-12 to RTY Twenties, because he'd helped Joe and his team do that in the Seventies, but he knew from Joe that they, the A109 and the MI-17 had all been loaned to the CIA for a covert operation in early Eighty Nine and then disappeared. The only reason that he'd known that they'd been hidden in the AMARC under falsified records was that Bry had told him that word had come down the line four or five months ago that the President had advised the DCI to get any equipment they had that could be identified as being for off the books covert operations out of sight because they were about to be hit with another 'surprise' Congressional investigation. The other equipment had been easy enough to hide, but someone had decided that the best place to hide the planes and helicopters would be in the AMARC, so they'd all been punted over there.

The way Hank saw it, the rightful owners of those aircraft were the Air Force base where Joe was, but the CIA had told them that they'd lost the planes and helicopters, so he saw nothing wrong with having the aircraft reassigned to the Spectre Group from the AMARC and their getting use out of them. It wasn't as if the CIA could complain that anyone had stolen them after they'd lied to the Air Force about what they'd done with them. He told Joe they had them and if Joe said that they wanted their aircraft back he'd return them, but in the meantime they could get some use out of them...

After working all day on the planes, Hank and Charly usually spent half the night hunting what they needed to build their aircraft fleet, and more often than not fell asleep together. Most of the family said that that was when they became a couple, but it paid off in March when they dragged Roan to the Eastern Airlines bankruptcy auction, because between Roan's silver tongue and their digging up information that no-one else at the auction had, they acquired enough from Eastern to _really_ kick their plans into gear, picking up their headquarters and maintenance hubs in Miami and San Juan and most of their facilities at other airports, along with the six mislabelled A Three Hundred Six Hundred Rs they were operating out of San Juan and all its operating certificates for the States, Canada, England, the Caribbean, Bahamas and Central and South America for about Eighteen Million.

The ones from the regular airlines didn't bother bidding against him for Eastern's operating certificates and he got them for peanuts, and he had talked down their supposedly tired old facilities and the _ancient_ Airbuses they had serving the South American routes so much that he didn't get much of a fight for them either... By the time everyone else realised that the old A Three Hundreds were the last items being presented for sale and that he'd actually snagged the newest A Three Hundreds in Eastern's fleet, Charly had paid in full for everything and sealed the deal.

On the basis of the reports of them being much quieter than other airliners and having a reasonable range, Hank also had Roan snap up Presidential Airways' eight BAe 146-200s when they went bust in February 90, and Discovery Airways' five brand new 146-200-QCs when the DOT shut them down in March, because they'd need quiet planes to be able to operate after hours at El Monte when it reopened because of the strict noise restrictions that had been used to get the local community to accept the redevelopment of the airport area. When they got them though, Hank was surprised, and actually a little excited, to discover that there was far more to these little airliners than being quiet. There hadn't been much information available on them, so it wasn't until they took possession of their new planes that he discovered that they were quite capable of operating out of short unpaved airstrips, and that with a bit of creative thinking in regard to the engines, extra tanks and a few tweaks here and there, he could make significant improvements to their performance and range. As soon as he saw how capable they could be, he went looking for more of these 'Smiliners', as Pacific Southwest called them, and they started building a fleet of the planes.

* * *

Something else had arisen from their acquiring Eastern's operating certificates though, because Hank and Charly realised that these could be the key for them to get access to countries around the world. That started them, and everyone else in the group, looking for and picking up defunct airlines around the world that had operating certificates for other countries, and in October they hit the jackpot, because the German government announced that they were liquidating the East German carrier Interflug. Interflug operated right across the globe, so in one fell swoop they could get access to most of the world. They immediately reached out to their friends in Germany (German intelligence mainly) to get their assistance to open negotiations with the Treuhandanstalt to obtain all of Interflug's company rights and operating certificates, but the first head of the Treuhandanstalt was committed to helping the workers of the companies they were liquidating take them over, so the negotiations dragged on for six months until he was assassinated. They _were_ upset about his assassination, because he had been a good man who was trying to do the right thing, but it worked in their favour because his replacement was ambitious and had decided to make a name for herself by quickly getting the prominent companies like Interflug off their books quickly. As soon as she took over, she told them that the only way they were going to get Interflug's company rights and operating certificates was if they bought the rest of Interflug's aircraft and facilities, and she made them an offer they couldn't refuse, Interflug and all its operating certificates, along with the Interflug headquarters and maintenance facilities at Berlin Schönefeld Airport and Santa Maria Island Airport and facilities at sixteen other airports around the world and three IL-86KD, six TU-154KM2 and six Yak-42KM2 planes for Twenty Five Million Dollars US all up.

They knew from what the air and maintenance crews for those planes had told them that the planes alone were worth several times that, and they'd also passed on other interesting titbits like the fact that Interflug had actually bought Santa Maria Island Airport and the adjacent Aeroporto residential area outright for a song in late Sixty Nine when it had all but closed down, so they would be acquiring an entire airport with proper maintenance facilities on an island that was an important staging point for trans-Atlantic and West African flights . All in all it was a no brainer for them and they closed the deal then and there when the head of the Treuhandanstalt made the offer.

The Soviet aircraft industry had been foundering in the late Eighties, so when Interflug tried to cancel the orders it had placed for six TU-154Ms, six Yak-42Ds and three IL-86s to revitalise its aging fleet of TU-154Bs, TU-134s and Il-62s in the second half of Eighty Eight, Tupolev, Yakovlev and Ilyushin begged for a chance to prove that they could at least match the Western aircraft manufacturers.

After commercial airliners were exempted from the trade embargo in 1988, Interflug had compared the Soviet airliners they'd ordered with their Western counterparts and realised that the Soviet planes would put them at a serious disadvantage if they had to start competing with Western Airlines (which was beginning to look more likely with the winds of change blowing through the Soviet Union), so they tried to cancel their orders. The aircraft manufacturers all had prototypes that between them would deliver most of what Interflug required, and they were so desperate to make this work that they actually agreed to collaborate to improve their chance of success... they also agreed that drastic measures would be required if they wanted to stop Interflug and other airlines taking their business elsewhere. The success of this venture hinged on the black market supplier who assured them that he could get them the Western technology they needed to make this work (he normally dealt in military technology but he'd do anything for a price), and he did indeed deliver on that promise.

Tupolev got a dozen of the new CFM56-5B3 turbofans that had been created for the Airbus A320 family with the associated FADECs _and_ half a dozen complete Airbus A320 cockpits with the fly by wire systems they required and used these, plus extra tanks, the TU-154S's cargo door and the upcoming TU-204's higher capacity cabin design to create a new and greatly improved TU-154M2. The 66000 lb thrust of the two 5B3s was about five percent less than 154Ms generally had, but the FADECs offset that, and there was a lot less drag with the third engine removed. They also removed a fair bit of weight by using improved composite wings, tail and other components, so the performance had actually improved... and the two 5B3s used _far_ less fuel, especially with the reduced drag and weight, which allowed even more weight to be dropped by carrying less fuel for equivalent flight distances. As soon as they were confident that this would work, the aircraft manufacturers had advised Interflug to get a representative group of their pilots trained to fly the Airbus A320, just telling Airbus that they were thinking of leasing A320s to update their fleet so they wanted to have their pilots ready for that, so when Tupolev delivered the first TU-154KM2 to Interflug for acceptance testing in early Eighty Nine, Interflug had pilots who could fly it with a little coaching on the minor differences between it and the A320. Interflug was quite happy to commit to buying six of the revised model after their pilots had evaluated the plane, because it actually met their needs much better than the Boeing 757 they'd been thinking of getting instead of the TU-154M did and the wow factor of the A320 cockpit and systems was significant. As soon as the new design had been accepted, Tupolev went back to get the other five built and delivered to the airline ASAP.

Yakovlev took much the same approach as Tupolev, but used CFM56-5B6s with the 320 cockpit and systems, their proposed Yak-242's cabin design and an upscaled version of the Yak-40K's cargo door to build the Yak-42KM2, which was essentially a smaller version of of Tupolev's KM2 with shorter range. The 47000 lb thrust of the two 5B6s was almost ten percent _more_ than the usual engines' though, which gave the Yak had a marked improvement in performance, range and carrying capacity. Interflug readily accepted the Yak-42KM2 as well when it was presented for acceptance testing, as it would be perfect to replace their aging TU-134s...

With the larger four engine Il-86, Ilyushin had to go in a slightly different different direction from Tupolev and Yakovlev. They went with the same 5B3s and FADECs as Tupolev, but their supplier somehow managed to get them three cockpits and the fly by wire systems from the four engine A340 that Airbus was developing and they combined these and the 5B3s with their upcoming IL-96T's bigger wings and tail, cargo door, extra tanks etc to build three IL-86KDs with marked improvements in performance and over twice the range due to reduced weight from the composite wings, tail etc, fifteen percent higher thrust and greatly reduced consumption. Interflug was only too happy to take delivery of these in August Eighty Nine.

Buoyed by the capabilities of the new planes, Tupolev, Yakovlev and Ilyushin tried to get more of the engines, cockpits and other systems they needed to build more of them, but the the disappearance of so many engines, cockpits and other systems from Airbus over a short period like that forced the authorities to take action, which resulted in their supplier being caught and convicted to ten to fifteen years in prison for the multi million dollar thefts from Airbus and selling restricted technology to the Soviet Union, thereby killing off their dreams of a reversal of fortunes. Ilyushin was the only one who managed to come anywhere near recreating their plane's capabilities without the CFM56s and Airbus cockpits and systems, but even their attempts fell flat. Tupolev and Yakovlev continued to make their TU-154Ms and Yak-42Ds, but they were largely replaced by the under wing twin engine designs, TU-204 and Yak-242 and like Ilyushin they were hampered by the Russian government's insistence that they use Russian engines and systems.

But even though the new planes that were to make up the core of Interflug's new fleet had all been delivered and were in operation around the world by September Eighty Nine, it was too little, too late, because as far as the Treuhandanstalt were concerned, the new planes were just variations of the same tired old Soviet designs and they dealt with them on that basis. Interflug had been holding the information about their new planes' capabilities close the chest to try and retain a competitive advantage in the new cut throat business world they found themselves in and the manufacturers couldn't afford to say anything about the stolen technology they used to build them, so as far as other airlines were concerned, they were untried and untested experimental planes that they weren't prepared to risk their reputations and companies on... and which none of their pilots were trained to fly... so while the older and cheaper planes had found buyers, the new improved planes just sat under cover at Santa Maria Island Airport (where they were based to keep other airlines from getting too close a look at them). With the air and maintenance crews for those new planes telling them just how good they were though, they jumped at the chance to get them.

Later in Ninety One, Roan picked up Midway's headquarters and maintenance facility at Midway International and some of its facilities at other airports for a Million at their bankruptcy auction... and acquired the entire Pan Am Express airline with all its operating rights and assets, everything except for the Pan Am name, for about Eighteen Million all up. They hung onto the company as well as Pan Am Express' operating certificates in the US, Europe, Canada and the Bahamas, their headquarters and maintenance hubs at Northeast Philadelphia and Berlin Tegel, most of the facilities they had at other airports and what turned out to be another four Airbus A Three Hundred Six Hundred Rs in Berlin, but sold off all their other planes, routes, passenger facilities and everything else. He also picked up the Mexican airline La Tur's four A Three Twenties and two A Three Hundred Six Hundred Rs for another Twelve Million.

* * *

While all that was going on, Mike and Di had arranged for Gillikin Salvage (what they were operating on Mare Island as) to be awarded dismantling contracts for decommissioned vessels in the Navy's mothball fleets. The first three ships were the remaining three Thomaston class dock landing ships, the Thomaston, Monticello and Spiegel Grove, but to cover up what they were planning they had added other vessels to the list, the icebreaker Glacier, the Diver class rescue and salvage ship Clamp, two Natick class large yard tugs, two small floating dry docks, half a dozen cargo ships and oilers, and the Essex class aircraft carrier Shangri-La, because MARAD had repossessed her from the Taiwanese company contracted to scrap her when nothing had been done to her in the nearly two years since the contract was awarded in Eighty Eight.

This was another one of Mike's brilliant ideas, because having a pile of ships there being worked on at once meant that less attention would be paid to what was happening with any one ship. With hundreds of people working on all the ships they got the contracts for, no-one really paid attention to the fact that the ex-Thomaston, Monticello and Spiegel Grove were actually being fixed up and improved by Mike and the team he'd had brought in, with their steam plants being replaced with new CODLAG drive systems, and the rest of their other systems were being replaced by up to date equipment too. Some noted that the Glacier, Clamp and tugs were being cleaned up, but they presumed that they'd be used for a while around the shipyard and then scrapped.

With the hive of activity going on around Gillikin's shipyard on Mare Island, while the fact that they saved the island superstructure of the Shangri-La was hard to miss, few realised that significant parts of what was being removed from the ships, such as the elevator mechanisms and flight deck plating from the aircraft carriers, were also being stored rather than disposed of. This wasn't really a problem though, because they were being seen to scrap much of the vessels as they were contracted to. People did find it rather strange that they acquired the island superstructures and deck edge elevators (which had remained largely intact because it apparently wasn't cost effective to break them up, given the scrap metal prices of the time) from at least eight or nine more carriers (mostly Essexes) from other ship wreckers in Ninety One, so there was a growing line of carrier islands in their yard at Mare Island. This of course led to a lot of people talking about Gillikin's islands and Chuck especially liked the sound of that, so by the time the Mare Island Naval Shipyard closed in Ninety Six, they'd registered the business name Gillikin Island Shipyard.

It took MARAD a while to discover that the ex-Thomaston, Monticello and Spiegel Grove had in fact been refurbished, converted to CODLAG drive systems and registered to Nonestic Shipping as the freighters Jinjur, Jellia and Nimmie rather than being scrapped, while the icebreakers Glacier and Northwind, salvage ship Clamp, two tugs and two floating dry docks were all fixed up and registered to Gillikin Salvage. When they did though, MARAD tried to argue that they were in breach of the dismantling contracts, but Roan and Mike went in and read them chapter and verse of the fine print of their own contracts, which specifically stated that any or all of the vessels being dismantled may be used in the creation of other vessels so long as any military functionality had been removed (MARAD's contracts were changed to remove that loophole after that, except for the ones with a certain defence contractor who frightened them). The pictures of the Jinjur, Jellia and Nimmie showed that all weapons installations had been removed, the well decks had been closed off about a hundred feet from the stern to turn the remainder into a dry cargo hold and they had been converted to integrated electric drive systems. Mike pointed out each and every modification to the ships and stated that, as a currently serving US Navy Engineering Chief Warrant Officer with quite a bit of seniority, he was prepared to officially attest to the fact that these ship were _not_ now Thomaston class dock landing ships, and that they were in fact much closer in form and function to the Point Barrow Cargo Ship Dock variant of the Thomaston design. The MARAD legal team kept trying to argue for a while but eventually they gave in and conceded the point.

Their being so soundly trounced may have smarted for the MARAD's legal team, but it actually improved Gillikin Salvage's position with the MARAD, because their primary agenda was to be seen to be doing what they were supposed to, so withholding contracts from a company that had been proved to be in the right would only do harm to their image... There was also plenty of evidence to show how much Gillikin was getting through as it scrapped the vessels being disposed from the reserve fleet anyway, and awarding the contracts to a company located close to the reserve fleet saved them quite a bit of money and made it look like they were processing the vessels in their custody better, so they didn't argue when Gillikin put its hand up for other specific vessels as they were decommissioned over the next seventeen years or so. The same applied to the other four small floating dry docks and the Diver class rescue and salvage ships Preserver in 91 and Escape in 95 and the Bolster class rescue and salvage ships Bolster and Reclaimer in 92, Opportune in 93 and Conserver, Recovery and Hoist in 94 (they all had proud histories and were very useful ships to boot, so they deserved to be saved). Then there were the Raleigh class amphibious transport docks Raleigh and Vancouver in 92 and La Salle in 2005, the De Soto County class tank landing ship Suffolk County in 92, the Essex class aircraft carriers Bon Homme Richard in 92, Bennington in 94 and Oriskany in 96, the two uncompleted Henry J. Kaiser-class replenishment oilers and the Iwo Jima class amphibious assault ships Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Guadalcanal in 93, followed by the Tripoli in 95, New Orleans and Guam in 98 and Inchon in 2004 and the Wichita class replenishment oiler Wabash in 94. They acquired the Anchorage class dock landing ship Fort Fisher in 98, followed by the Anchorage, Mount Vernon and Portland in 2004, and the second generation Cimmaron oilers Cimmaron and Merrimack in 98 and Monongahela, Willamette and Platte in 99... when they got the Cimmarons the integrated electric drive Azipod systems and other new systems were transferred from the Mispillions to the Cimmarons and the World War II era Mispillions were scrapped. The Austin class amphibious transport dock Duluth was acquired in 2005, the Austin and Coronado in 2006 and Shreveport and Ogden in 2007, Juneau in 2008 and Nashville in 2009, plus the Tarawa class amphibious assault ship in 2007. They got the dismantling contract for the Forrestal class aircraft carrier Ranger in Ninety Nine, and the contract for her sister ship Independence in 2004, and by arrangement with the Navy, the dismantling contracts for the SALMs, BTUs and any other components of the Offshore Petroleum Discharge Systems came to them at the end of their two year service life so that they could get the parts they needed to keep their's operational. They also managed to acquire another dozen of the aluminium LCM-8s in 93, and a dozen more in 97, so they ended up with ninety six of the aluminium LCM Eights...

They also managed to get the dismantling contract for the ex-USS Barbel transferred to them with the original contractor's agreement after they had stopped work on scrapping the sub once they'd removed the conning tower because they'd found asbestos insulation on the inside surfaces. The Barbel would be a longer term project, but she wasn't being scrapped, they had plans for her. They cut the nose and tail cones off to make it look like they were doing something, but that was because they would be replacing them anyway, and removing the nose cone with her torpedo tubes had removed her offensive capabilities so that should shut up the biggest arguments.

* * *

When they got the Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Guadalcanal in Ninety Three, the modifications they made to them at Chuck's excited suggestion were... Well Di and some of the others called them crazy but Mike and the others who worked on pulling it off preferred to call them _interesting_ , and most of the doubters agreed when they saw how well it had worked. What they'd done was cut sterns and parts of the bows out of the ex-Guadalcanal and the ex-Fort Snelling and swap them over. For all that he was only eleven at the time, Mike and the others had to agree with Chuck's comments about the primary shortcomings of the Iwo Jima design and his point that if a Thomaston stern would fit onto an Iwo Jima as it appeared it would, that would go a long way towards addressing most of those shortcomings. So they carefully measured both hulls and when the measurements supported the idea that this would work, they started cutting. While they were confident that it would work though, they used the examples of the two classes which had suffered the most damage over their service lives as a test case, so if for some reason it _didn't_ work they wouldn't have destroyed a good hull for nothing. It almost seemed a sign though that combining the two hulls that way would remove the worst of the damaged areas in both and create something sounder than either of them, cancelling out their problems as it were...

The result of marrying the Guadalcanal and Fort Snelling's hulls exceeded their expectations, so they promptly repeated the exercise with the ex-Iwo Jima and ex-Thomaston, and the ex-Okinawa and ex-Point Defiance. While it was actually the second one built though, they all agreed that the Iwo Jima / Thomaston hull would officially be the lead ship of what they decided to call the Nonestica class, because they had been the lead ships of the donor ships' two classes...

When they got the Tripoli in Ninety Five and combined it with the ex-Plymouth Rock's stern, that meant that they had four, six hundred foot flat top landing dock ships hauling cargo for Nonestic, plus the seven, four hundred and fifty foot De Soto Counties and another seven Thomaston and Raleigh based ships that were around five hundred and ten feet. With that fleet working around the world they were shifting a lot of cargo, but more importantly their cargo handlers and general crew were mainly from the ex special ops soldiers who made up a good percentage of their numbers, so between the shipping company and their air freight operations, they could normally have support teams on hand for most operations.

People found out what they were collecting the carrier islands for when they got Anchorage class dock landing ship Fort Fisher in Ninety Eight, because they converted it into a flat top that was rounded off at the bow like the Iwo Jimas, using the flight deck plating, deck edge elevator and island superstructure from the Shangri-La. They had done the same to the Robin and Ouragan (which was renamed to the Alexis) in early Ninety Seven, the main differences being that they were sixty odd feet shorter, twelve feet narrower and they kept their own islands.

* * *

Changes to the plans for the Aleksandr Nikolayev and Ouragan notwithstanding, they _did_ have to alter the Liisa and Robin's appearance enough to stop Volkoff identifying them as his missing ships, but Chuck's plans for the Robin and Ouragan (once he'd dropped the idea to scrap it) were simple, get them into the dry dock and turn them into pseudo flat tops like the Iwo Jimas. There was an added wrinkle however because the ones who sailed the Liisa and Robin up the coast had reported that the performance and handling of the two ships was significantly better than their other ships, because Volkoff had paid a fortune in the the early Nineties to get them converted to far more powerful and efficient integrated electric Azipod drive systems. The integrated electric drive system conversions were no surprise, as they'd something similar on their Thomastons, Raleighs, Tarantuls, oilers, salvage ships and tugs to improve performance and efficiency, but the Azipods were new technology that they hadn't had any experience with before. The people who'd had the experience of sailing the two ships with the Azipods reported that they were a significant improvement over the traditional gearboxes, shafts and rudders in both manoeuvrability and efficiency though, so they began making plans to convert most of their other ships to Azipods as well, starting with the Ouragan while she was being made into a flat top, it would be more of an investment up front but it would pay off over time.

This meant that the Jinjur was diverted to Finland to pick up new integrated electric and diesel electric Azipod drive systems for the Kathleen, Emma, Alexis and Su, plus Azipods to convert their eleven existing dock ships, eighteen oilers, seven De Soto Counties, five icebreakers, eighteen salvage ships and fourteen tugs. And the diesel electric waterjet drive systems to upgrade the eight CTMs Chuck bought off the French Navy with the Ouragan and Bougainville, plus waterjets to convert their existing LCUs, LCMs and the six Tarantuls. Auntie Di would have had a fit if she knew just how much Chuck was sinking into this exercise to do up their ships, but Chuck, Ellie, Emma, Charly, Roan and Jack were really the only ones who really knew anything about their money matters, because the six of them managed the Carmichael, Hunter, La Mancha, Phoenix, Cinders and Spectre Corporations that everything went through. Ellie, Emma, Charly, Roan and Jack didn't have a problem with what Chuck was spending on this because they looked at the bottom line rather than just the dollar figures involved and they all agreed that the expected operating efficiency and operability improvements should be worth the extra money.

* * *

It wasn't just Volkoff they were hiding everything from though, because Graham and his cronies in the military immediately started demanding an after action debriefing from the DCS task force who conducted the operation about what had happened at the auction and where everything being sold at the auction had gone to. Di had already officially reported to the National Security Advisor and Secretary of Defense that a) The information the CIA had provided about what was at the auction was so inaccurate that the mission had almost failed, and her people believed that they had been deliberately misinformed with malice of forethought to set them up for failure and possibly be killed because they wouldn't have gotten at least fifty or sixty different potential buyers of the type who were at the auction without providing enough detail about what was being offered to wet their appetites. b) There were forty seven aircraft there to be auctioned, they ranged from eight seat helicopters to airliner based jet transports and included six of those multi role combat jets they were initially told about, and _all_ of them were armed and operational, as were the dozen other helicopters which were apparently the ships' helicopters. In addition to that there were eighteen watercraft and over three dozen land vehicles that were also armed and operational and a very large amount of advanced weapons and munitions ranging from small arms and hand grenades up to auto cannon, missile launchers and large bombs. And c) The nature and scope of what was being offered at the auction presented a very real and immediate threat, so her people came up with a ruse, which they'd had to improvise on the spot because they'd had no forewarning of what they would find there, to steal the ships and the largest planes and get them away from there. The planes were ditched in the Pacific to get rid of them and the aircrews picked up, but to ensure that the ones behind the auction wouldn't be able to locate the ships and recover what was on them, they took them back through the Panama Canal and scuttled them in a deep part of the Atlantic. The Secretary of Defense at first argued that they should have brought those ships back to the US so that they could examine what was being offered for sale, but conceded her point when Di reminded him that the CIA and possibly others had obviously had plans for what was at this auction and there was a very real possibility that they were working with the people behind the auction, so her people had decided on the spot that the only safe course would be to dispose of them where they couldn't be found or recovered. She added that she supported her people's decision in this matter completely.

Graham and the others were caught out when the National Security Advisor and Secretary of Defense turned up for the after action debriefing, all the more so when the NSA grabbed the satellite photos of the auction site that they were planning to use to pressure Diane into giving up the location of what was offered at the auction. Unfortunately they had to let it go when Graham said that he had tried to pass the information on to the contact he had for the task force when the photos showed that there was more at the auction than expected, but couldn't because they'd gone dark, as they _had_ gone dark by the time the satellite photos were taken. When they interrogated Diane about what was at that auction, she said that the aircraft at the airstrip were apparently DC-9s that had been converted into cargo planes and armed and modified Russian IL-76s, and the other planes were refurbished and modified F-5F Tiger IIs and medium and large twin engine business jets that might have been modified Dassaults and Gulfstreams, while the helicopters were apparently modified Mils and Eurocopters. The fun started when Graham demanded to know what happened to everything from the auction and Di gave him the same story she gave the National Security Advisor and Secretary of Defense, that the big jets were ditched in the Pacific and the ships were scuttled in a deep part of the Atlantic with the rest of what was offered at the auction. Di and the NSA shared a look when Graham demanded to know _exactly_ where the planes and ships were sunk, but the NSA let her have her fun.

"I don't know where they are Director, because our people commanding the operation deliberately wiped any and all records of the locations after they were sunk. You see they were extremely suspicious about the fact that we had apparently been deliberately misinformed about the nature of the auction when they arrived and found not only far more than they were informed would be there, but well over fifty different buyers who weren't the type who would have gone there ready to spend money unless they'd been given enough information to convince them that it would be worth their while, not to mention the armed guards every buyer had there. Apparently the first thing that tipped them off was the couple of hundred million dollars' worth of buyers' business jets that were lined up at the airstrip with those airliners when they arrived. That was why, once they'd managed to steal the ships and the airliners and get away, they ditched the airliners far enough out into the Pacific to ensure that they wouldn't be found and then took the ships through to the Atlantic to a spot where _they_ wouldn't be found before they scuttled them. Then they scrubbed all records of those locations from their electronic and written information to ensure that they would stay there. The only record of any kind that may remain of those locations is in a few of my peoples' heads, and even I don't know who they may be, so those aircraft and weapons are _gone_ Director."

Graham wasn't stupid, he let it lie there because he couldn't be certain that there wouldn't be any evidence of his fingerprints in this thing somewhere. Some of his supporters weren't as bright and they screamed the house down about the unfounded accusations she was making and that she had to make her people reveal those locations, but intelligence wasn't a criteria he used in most of his dealings, it was more whether they could be of use to him and he could find a way of ensuring that they'd do whatever he wanted. Eventually the shouting and threats died down and the matter was officially declared closed.

* * *

Luckily, most of the Super Jets and Super Hummingbirds' appearances were close enough to pre-existing Air Force aircraft that they could get away with having the J70s registered as modified C-9s in the Air Force's records and used that to get them civil registration as DC-9s, and the J50s, CL-600 and Yak as modified C-20Gs/Gulfstream GIVs. They also got away with getting the J30s listed as modified HU-25s/Dassault Falcon 20s and the Super Tigers registered as modified F-5F Tiger IIs, so they could all use military air bases without any trouble. It was a bit more of a stretch to get the H30s, H50s and H70s listed in the Air Force and civil records as modified OH-58s/Bell 206Ls, the Mil MI-8s and H90s listed as modified HH-3s/Sikorsky S-61Rs, the MI-6s and MI-26 listed as modified CH-53s/Sikorsky S-65s, the AN-12s as C-130s and AN-32s as C-8As/DHC-5s, but they managed. They didn't even try with the J90, because the closest thing to that would have been the AN-124, and even that was too different to convince people that the J90 was a modified version of it.

They actually found it interesting that Volkoff's designers had made much the same changes as they had to most of their own planes with the Super Jets... lengthening the planes to increase their capacity, beefing up the landing gear and adding leading edge slats and Krueger flaps to the wings to handle short, unpaved airstrips, converting the AN-124 and Yak-42 designs to twin engines, upgrading all of them to more powerful and efficient engines, reducing aerodynamic drag as much as possible and optimising them for smaller operating crews and maximum cargo carrying capabilities but making them simple to convert into comfortable long range passenger planes. Even going as far as converting them all to the Challenger or A320 glass cockpits and A320 controls because when the planes used the same controls, you could step out of one plane and into another without worrying about making a potentially fatal mistake because you forgot what the procedure was for that particular plane when things got busy.

Hank made it clear that the first J30 was earmarked for Chuck when it was ready, as it was a fast and handy sized plane that would make the perfect vehicle for him to get to and from Palo Alto when he went to Stanford. By the time they started back after Christmas 1996, Hank, Yuri and the rest of the team at Red Mountain had stripped the J30 down and fitted FADEC systems and a new interior with more space as Volkoff's people hadn't made the best use of the opportunities presented by the composite fuselage, they also tweaked the avionics and glass cockpit to make single pilot operation easier. The J30 had been pretty much a new plane designed to optimise performance and range, but the upgrades they made to the systems and interior improved it even further. They registered the J30s in the military systems as modified HU-25s and flew them as Falcon 20s. They also did it up nicely so that it really fit the image of an elegant mid-size (big enough to be impressive but small enough to be handy) executive jet for Chuck, Ellie and the others to use to bolster their cover when they were using rich cover identities like the Volkoviches, the other SJs were fixed up much the same way, but they weren't quite as nice as the one he built for Chuck and Ellie to use. He also fixed up one of the H50s the same way for them, so that they had an elegant executive helicopter to go with their jet. Quite aside from anything else, this meant that they made for very fast and comfortable transports.

* * *

They had established their facility at Red Mountain after Di got the Army's revised Stealth Helicopter Program transferred to the Spectre group in early Ninety Three by making that her price for Hank's assistance in the program when the Army tried to get him back to restart the development of an effective Stealth Helicopter. Once she'd gotten control of the program though, she'd tried to dump all the work involved in getting it set up and operational onto Chuck, he'd taken it on because the project interested him, but he'd used her own tactics on her. When she tried to dictate how he and Hank would run the project, Chuck told her that it would be _either_ him _or_ her running this operation, then he laid his plan for the entire operation out in front of her. They already had Emerald City to run the project through and cover up where they got the money from, so he'd use the funds they had off-shore to get whatever property, plant, equipment and staff Hank deemed necessary for the project and he'd provide the organisational management and funding for the operation while Hank would be in charge of all the technical aspects of the operation. It was the perfect model for making an operation of this nature work, but then he pulled the rug right out from under her.

"I'll deliver all of this for your Stealth Helicopter Program Auntie Di, but _only_ if I'm managing the operation. By that I mean that I'll be running Emerald City as the defence contractor company that's developing this _for_ you, and you'll be the government representative that we're delivering the results to. If you want to try to control this and order us about and make demands while we're trying to develop an effective stealth helicopter for you though, I refuse to have anything to do with the project. In that case, _everything_ I just showed you is off the table and you will have to get the funding and organise and manage the whole thing yourself, without _any_ involvement from me, and quite frankly I doubt that Uncle Hank will be able to deliver what you want without under those conditions."

He'd looked at Hank in apology for that last statement but Hank just indicated that he agreed with that conclusion. Auntie Di had been furious about being spoken to and blackmailed like that, _especially_ by her eleven year old godson, but she knew that he had her over a barrel. She could either accept his terms, deal with him like she would any other legitimate defence contractor and almost certainly be able to deliver what the Army wanted, or she could try and assert her authority, and end up with egg on her face because she'd only gotten control of this program by promising to deliver a working stealth helicopter if they gave her _total_ control. She gave in to the inevitable and accepted Chuck's terms, and signed the contracts that he'd come prepared with (she saw her sister's hand in _that_ ). Then she asked how soon they could get started and Chuck grinned at her, handing over another pile of documents, and she knew she'd just been played.

"Just as soon as you get the Air Force to sell us that supposedly non-existent Cold War Strategic Airbase they have hidden under Red Mountain in the Nevada Test Range Auntie Di. They've been trying to scrub any and all records of its existence ever since they closed it down when President Bush signed the Disarmament Treaty last year, because the Atlas F Missile complex it was built under was officially decommissioned in the mid-Sixties and they don't want it to come out that we were hiding wings of special purpose B Fifty Twos and Hustlers that were specifically built to make a decisive strike into the heart of Russia there for over twenty years, but it hasn't been used since they chopped up the B Fifty Twos and Hustlers from there last year to erase the evidence and Air Force records are showing that it's been costing them well over Ten Million a month to try and hush up any questions about it in the eight months since they closed the base. Uncle Joe was the head of the assembly and maintenance facilities there up until they shut it down and Uncle Hank has kept in touch with him since they met when he was called in to consult on some aircraft conversion problems they were having there in Seventy, and he was brought back for other conversion and upgrade programs through the Seventies and Eighties. That's where he met Uncle Jimmy and why he got you to transfer Uncle Joe and his core team to the Spectre group six months ago. So what we're proposing here is for the Special Project and Tactical Research Group's primary defence contractor partner... Emerald City... to purchase the Red Mountain Strategic Airbase and Red Mountain Combat Staging and Delivery Training Facility outright from the Air Force with the formal undertaking that we will maintain total secrecy about the existence of the Red Mountain Airbase, just as we have covered up the true nature of the covert bases we acquired from the Navy in early Ninety and the existence of the secret SAC refuelling bases at Eilat and Dyer Island we took over as Emerald City six months ago, and will only refer to the facilities at Red Mountain as the Red Mountain Aircraft Research Facility or Emerald City Research Facility. As detailed in these documents, what we're _officially_ purchasing is the decommissioned Red Mountain Combat Staging and Delivery Training Facility, but _everything_ within the boundaries of the hundred odd square miles that the Training Facility covers is to be included in that purchase... The Facility's buildings, the mock towns and airfields scattered right across the Facility, all the aircraft hangars which are dug into the foot hills of Red Mountain and other hills around the Training Facility's headquarters... _especially_ the Big Birds' hangars, which we happen to know are one hell of a lot bigger on the inside than they look... and the radio and radar facilities and control tower they have up on top of Red Mountain for directing aircraft operations in the area. That will officially sever any and all official connections between the Air Force and the Red Mountain Strategic Airbase when they sign it all over to us, which will also save them the over Ten Million a month it's currently costing them to try and cover up its existence. We will of course be requiring access for all of our listed pilots to fly through the Nevada Test and Training Range's restricted airspace and the prohibited airspace around Area Twenty Seven that the Facility is part of, but most of our listed pilots are registered U.S. Military Pilots anyway so that shouldn't be too much of a sticking point. I know that Strategic Air Command doesn't normally care about how much money they blow, but from what I've seen in the Air Force records, I'm fairly confident they will accept an all inclusive offer to divest them of responsibility for the Airbase and Training Facility for a Hundred Million under those terms. That being said, I'm prepared to go up to Two Hundred Million if we have to because we want the facility."

Di was irked, but not at all surprised, when her godson was proven right, _again_ , because after the Air Force dithered for over a month and lost another Ten or Fifteen Million and a token amount of haggling to save face, everything to do with the Red Mountain Strategic Airbase and Red Mountain Combat Staging and Delivery Training Facility was quickly and quietly written off and sold to the defense contractor Emerald City under its new title of the Red Mountain Aircraft Research Facility for a Hundred and Ten Million all up. The Air Force was delighted to have the chance to wash their hands of the political time bomb that a hidden strategic airbase like that represented in the current environment and wanted to stop losing money hand over fist, so they pushed through the sale of everything within the boundaries of the hundred odd square miles that the Red Mountain Combat Staging and Delivery Training Facility had covered to Emerald City as quickly as they could to be shot of it. The fact that, as Chuck said, Emerald City had already taken over two other sensitive facilities from SAC six months before, not to mention the six others they took over from the Navy in early Ninety, and had managed to keep everything quiet helped smooth over any opposition to the plan.

When Red Mountain was handed over to them, they were shocked to find that _all_ the remaining aircraft associated with the Strategic Air Base and its satellite facilities on Dyer Island and outside Eilat, _and_ the Training Facility... the two AN-22s, four AN-12s, two AN-32s, two MI-26s, two MI-6s, four MI-8s, three MI-17s, three MI-24s, two Agusta A109Cs, two C-133B Cargomasters, twelve modified C-141B Starlifters, four Hercules, four Buffalos, two Chinooks, the YA-10B N/AW two seat Night/Adverse Weather prototype, four A-10A Warthogs, twelve A-4E and three TA-4F Skyhawks that were upgraded with the 4M's nosewheel, refuelling probe, canopy, wing and fin, the 4H's extended tailpipe and 30mm Aden cannons, more powerful and efficient RR/SNECMA M45 turbofan and the equivalent of the Project Kahu avionics, thirty six modified F-106Bs, three Pave Lows, four Jolly Green Giants, six Hueys, eight Little Birds, three Cobras, forty eight KC-106J Yukon tankers, forty eight modified KC-135RT Stratotankers and lengthened twin tail Super Guppy Turbine oversized cargo plane that the Air Force had secretly commissioned with very specific requirements to fly in B-52 and Hustler replacement components, wings, tails and even entire B-52s and Hustlers in pieces to be assembled inside the base if necessary and a very interesting wrecked prototype had been included in what was signed over to Emerald City, along with an interesting collection of Light Strike Vehicles and other Airborne Combat vehicles and a mountain of CFM56-2 turbofans. When he asked people he knew among the Base's officers, Joe was told that the Strategic Air Command brass had decided that the sudden addition of anything as distinctive as the Super Guppy, Yukons, Soviet planes and helicopters or the heavily modified Six Bs, Starlifters and Stratotankers to regular squadrons would be sure to get people talking, as would releasing the Warthogs, and they didn't want that... The Cargomasters and Buffalos were supposed to have been retired in the early Seventies, while the Hercules, Skyhawks, Chinooks, Pave Lows, Jolly Green Giants, Hueys, Little Birds and Cobras had officially been allocated to the training facility after they were retired from active duty in the late Seventies and Eighties, which meant that they'd all be automatically retired... and most of them were modified as well, so they arbitrarily decided to officially write off _all_ the aircraft and sign them over to Emerald City as part of the deal, and the other vehicles had mostly been brought in for operational trials and remained there because most of them hadn't been adopted by the Army, Navy or Marines. They had a hell of a lot of fence line to patrol on a facility that size and most of these vehicles were more effective than what the Army had chosen anyway, so they didn't argue with the facility's motor pool being expanded. Needless to say, Hank and Joe immediately started making plans to make use of that mountain of turbofans, but the way they were looking at the Cargomasters, Guppy, Yukons, Stratotankers and Starlifters said that they were planning something big there.

Of course, that was nothing on the excited discussions that Chuck was having with them about the wrecked XV-15 prototype, which had _also_ been signed over to them. It turned out that the famous crash where a guest test pilot flipped the first XV-15 prototype over and drove it into the ground had actually occurred at the Red Mountain Training Facility just before it was closed down. Someone had decided that the mocked up towns and wild terrain they had there would make a great showcase for the XV-15, and it did, up until the crash anyway. The senior Bell officials who were there for the demonstration were pissed off because the prototype had had to be flown in there, and they had no way of airlifting it out after it crashed. The engineers they had there pointed out that the airframe should really be written off after a crash like that, so they were told to hack up the wreck and load it onto their plane, but Joe was sure that the prototype could be recovered, so he rushed off to have a quiet but ardent word with the base commander, who in turn had a word with the Bell officials, which resulted in the cockpit and engines being removed but the rest of the wreck being left intact so that the facility's technical people could look into whether they could rebuild the prototype and use it for further testing. To absolve themselves of any responsibility in the event of any further crashes, the legal people that Bell had brought with them (always mindful of potential lawsuits) drew up an agreement which assigned all rights and responsibilities in regard to the XV-15 prototype N702NA to the Base Commander, so if anything happened with it, it would be on his head. N702NA had just been signed over to Emerald City under an almost identical agreement, so it was all their's, and anything that happened with it was their responsibility. The family couldn't help laughing at Chuck, because they'd never seen him this excited before.

Another nice surprise was finding that most of the equipment and parts in the base and training facility assembly and maintenance shops had been left behind too because while still quite serviceable, most of the equipment was at least twenty years old and hadn't been deemed worth relocating from an out of the way base that they didn't want to draw attention to. While a number of things had been hacked out and removed, the communications and radar equipment with the control tower up on Red Mountain and Command Centre inside the base was all intact and operational, as were the hard lines between the control tower and the base's main Command Centre so that everything could be operated remotely from the Command Centre. Chuck had fun updating all of these systems so that they were far beyond anything the military had, adding satellite links and multiple video and sensor feeds in every direction so that anything that could be done up in the control tower could be done just as well, if not better, from the main base Command Centre, and giving them very effective security and communications systems. The NORAD backup base in one of the other command centres had been stripped out of course, but all the external power and communications hard lines into the facility were left intact so Chuck got them reconnected and linked Red Mountain to their other command centres in Arcadia, Tipton Field, Houston, Miami, Chicago and Philadelphia, even before he started ordering the additional equipment Hank and Yuri wanted for the project. Starting with the most power hungry equipment, Chuck replaced most of the electronic equipment over time with newer and more efficient technology that reduced their power requirements considerably, and brought their people in from Emerald City in Israel to create a solar thermal power plant on the property which generated enough power to cover their needs most of the time.

Jimmy and Pops had organised construction teams to fix the damage where things had been hacked out and correct flaws in the base design that had been aggravating Jimmy ever since he participated in the original design and construction of the Strategic Airbase as the boy wonder of the Engineering Corps in the late Sixties. He'd been given a surprising amount of say in the design for someone in his early twenties because he'd come up with some very effective processes and designs for building underground hangars and fuel stores, hidden runways and such the previous year in Israel when the Air Force had 'assisted' the IDF in levelling a valley just outside Eilat to create a covert airbase with a secret US Strategic Bomber refuelling base, but he was over-ridden on most of the key features he wanted to include because 'that wasn't the way the Air Force did things', but there weren't any old fools to stop him now! (Pops may be old, but he was no fool.)

* * *

When Auntie Di and Uncle Roan turned up at the house for Christmas Two Thousand looking smug, Chuck was suspicious, all the more so when Auntie Em snapped at her sister. "Stop playing games and bring them in Di!"

That made the others turn and look at the cars they had come in, to see the door open and a face that they hadn't seen in eight years. Lou Palone had been part of their original three musketeers (Skip had been d'Artagnan then) up until she and her family suddenly disappeared without a word to anyone and it was discovered that they had moved to Israel. But Lou wasn't alone, because her mother and two little girls got out of the car with her, and the girls looked just like little versions of Lou and were about seven years old.

Chuck could see the knowing smiles on the faces of the older members of the family out of the corner of his eye, but Ellie appeared to be as confused as he and Anna were. They could see Lou saying something to the girls, and then she took each of them by the hand and led them up the path.

The only thing stopping Chuck and Anna running to greet Lou was the little girls, because they obviously couldn't work out what the hell was going on here and they didn't want to frighten them, so they waited for them….. But as it was, Chuck almost fainted when Lou reached them and said. "Lottie, Charlie, this is your Abba!"

The dam burst then and everyone was greeting her and the girls, then they went inside to hear the story. Ellie would get the story later because she and Auntie Em took the girls out the back to play, along with Viv, Josie, Benjie, Katy, Uncle Bry's daughter Kimmy and John's daughter Alex, as some parts of this story weren't likely to be suitable for children.

* * *

What not even Lou had known back at the start of Ninety Three before they disappeared was that her father had been in the process of finalising arrangements for the entire family to emigrate to Israel, because he saw the loose and easy ways of America as a threat to his children growing up properly as orthodox Jews. Lou's father was a prominent businessman who had a reputation for observed the tenants of orthodox Judaism (ultra-orthodox actually), her mother was a well respected scientist at Caltech who was also a practising orthodox Jew (this was both the reason they'd come to California, and why she dutifully did as her husband said when he arbitrarily decided that they were moving to Israel), and Lou and her brothers were all outstanding students, so Israel was eager to get them.

When he discovered that their thirteen year old daughter was _pregnant,_ and she wouldn't tell them who the father was, or more to the point, refused to confirm that it was Charles Bartowski because it was obvious to everyone who knew them how devoted she and Anna Wu were to the boy, Lou's father had decided to put an end to this corruption of his family's values immediately and sent her and her two brothers to New York that very night with their mother while he stayed to pack up and sell the house. As a dutiful Jewish wife, Rebecca had done as she was told even though she disagreed with her husband.

The twins were born in Israel, and Rebecca managed with considerable pleading and an ultimatum or two to make Luca (he could tell people he was David but she always thought of him as the name she married him as) let Lou name her own children, so they were named Charlotte Ella and Charlene Anna after their father and the two women Lou was closest to, or more commonly Lottie and Charlie. When they were alone, Rebecca had asked Lou why she'd refused to admit that Charles was the father when she was asked, and she confessed that she'd been afraid of what her father might have done to Chuck if she'd confirmed it then, because he was so angry. She'd also confessed that Anna had also experimented with sex with Chuck, but they'd both discovered that no matter how much they loved Chuck and how good what he did for them felt, sex with him, a man, just wasn't right for them, so they'd experimented with each other as well, and that was where they found what was right for them. This was a shock for Rebecca, to find out that her little girl was not only a mother at thirteen, but a lesbian as well, but she loved her no matter what, and her beautiful granddaughters of course.

They agreed at the time that her father wouldn't react well to the news and her brothers might not be so understanding either, so they kept Lou's preferences a secret between them, and while the twins were officially recorded as Lou's daughters and treated as such inside the family, as far as most people knew they were her sisters. Her brothers were told Lou's secret soon afterwards, but they both loved their little sister and happily accepted her for what she was. Lou finished her story with the fact that she'd gotten into the Talpiot program and was doing her military service when Auntie Di and Auntie Mary contacted her back in May.

* * *

That made everyone turn and look at Auntie Di, so she started her part of the story.

"When Roan and Anna dropped that little bombshell about Chuck having sex with Anna and Lou around the time he turned eleven…." She stopped at the shocked look on Lou and Rebecca's faces. "Oh I'm sorry Lou, Anna only found out about that just before they finished University herself. You see, when we created Ellie and Chuck's new Bartowski identities in Ninety we made them older to help hide them, twenty five months older in Chuck's case, so he only turned nineteen this October..."

Lou was just staring at her in shock so she picked up the story again to take attention off the poor girl.

"Anyway, when they dropped that little bombshell, I suddenly remembered how devastated Chuck and Anna had been when Lou suddenly left without a word a few months after that, and it occurred to me to wonder whether the two events were related, so I asked some of our friends in Israeli intelligence to make some enquiries for me, and sure enough they came up with the information that Charlotte Ella and Charlene Anna Palone had been born to Louisa Palone about six months after the Palone family arrived in Israel, and their father was recorded as Charles Bartowski, a citizen of the United States of America born September Eighteen Nineteen Seventy Nine. They also confirmed that Lou was single and unattached and working in the Talpiot program… congratulations on that by the way Honey because I know how difficult it is to get into that program... so the fact that Ben and David _also_ got into the Talpiot Program is all the more impressive, you must be so proud of your children Rebecca."

Rebecca nodded with a smile and Di continued.

"Anyway, we knew that Chuck would want to know about his daughters, but Mary and I agreed that the choice had to be Lou's, so we flew to Israel to talk to her… Lou was furious that we'd even question that Chuck should know about his daughters, but after she'd calmed down enough to discuss it, she said that while she wished she could bring the girls back so the family could be together, she still had another five years or so of her military service left..."

She snorted at that. "You should have seen her face when Mary reminded her that we had a prior claim, because United States Air Force Major Louisa Palone had been one of our's since Ninety One…. But it still took us months to get the Israelis to accept the validity of Lou's Air Force commission and therefore our prior claim and release her from her IDF service requirements so she could leave Israel. The fact that Lou and her brothers are so impressive just made it all the more difficult because they didn't want to lose anyone of her calibre, and on top of that her father was doing everything he could to stop her taking the girls out of Israel, even going so far as to falsify a marriage to one of his friends' sons. We eventually got everything signed off by the Israeli government so that Lou, the girls and Rebecca were cleared to leave Israel a few weeks ago and flew over to bring them home, and that's where we are! We don't know whether Ben and David will be allowed to leave Israel until after they've completed their commitments to the Talpiot program but we'll take Rebecca, Lou and the girls over to see them if we can do so without putting them at risk...Lou's father definitely won't be getting anywhere near _any_ of them though _!_ "

"Mind you we had to use up a lot of our favours with our Israeli intelligence friends to get the government to accept the proof that Lou's father and his ultra-orthodox friends had falsified the case used to have strict travel and communications restrictions imposed on Lou, Rebecca, Ben and David purely for the purpose of stopping them from contacting Chuck or his family and get all those restrictions wiped from their records, and that the supposed marriage between Lou and his friend's son was also falsified and therefore annulled. Once they accepted that, the government agreed to and pulled strings to get Rebecca granted a divorce from Luca Palone, some of our friends had fun scaring him enough to make him give Rebecca a gett and then making him sell everything and give over two thirds of the money to Rebecca in the settlement. Ben and David will be using most of that to get themselves set up when they decide what they want to do because it looks like the government is releasing them early from their military service requirements for the Talpiot program in an attempt to keep them happy. The Israeli government is looking at the current situation as them already having lost Lou and Rebecca so they'll be doing everything they can to convince Ben and David and their wives to be not to leave Israel as soon as they can. We expect that part of that will be releasing them and their fiancés from their military service requirements, another that they've already done was including Ben and David in the name change from Palone to Rebecca's maiden name of Rabi that they pushed through for Rebecca, Lou and the girls, so their father is the only one who's remained a Palone. Rebecca and Lou also had to agree to continue working on some Israeli research programs in the private research facility we're building here in order to get their final clearances to leave Israel."

She laughed at the confused looks she was getting at that. "I was getting copies of all the plans and progress photos while El Castillo was being built, remember? The plans and progress photos of the labs there were quite enough to convince them we were building a research facility, because we basically were! The facilities will need to be expanded a little for the work Rebecca and Lou will be doing, but not much."

* * *

Chuck and Anna were looking more than a little shell shocked, so Lou was very pensive until Chuck came out of his daze enough to gather her and Anna into his arms, and after a teary release of emotions, they went out to be with the girls. The girls were having fun getting to know their Dodah Viv and Josie and Kim who were all three years older than them, Alex and Benji who were around four years older and Katy who was five years older, so there were plenty of squeals and laughter coming from the yard.

They had found out about John's daughter Alex in early Ninety Three when Chuck was setting up John's primary identity as his real name, Alexander John Coburn. He'd been going through John's records to make sure that there wasn't anything that could come back to bite him and discovered that the fiancé he'd had to leave behind when he was made to fake his death to start over as John Casey in a covert black ops group had had a baby girl in August Eighty Nine, who was named Alexandra Johanna McHugh after her father. It was thinking about Emma that convinced him to see them actually (as Kathleen had married by then), because he realised that it would have been a slap in the face to her to have his daughter right there in Los Angeles and not make any effort to see her when she and Chuck agonised every day about not being able to find Sammie, especially when Emma's own father _had_ died while her mother was carrying her.

It was John who was slapped actually, several times, and he found that Kathleen still had a strong right, but once she'd calmed down enough to listen, she found that she could accept his explanation on the basis of the man he had been at the time and the fact that he hadn't known anything about her being pregnant. Alex was three at that point and John saw her whenever he was in Los Angeles (he hadn't missed the fact that he'd spent a lot more time in LA since they found out about her and tried to let Colonel Beckman know how much he appreciated it without either of them actually admitting that they knew what he was talking about).

After dinner, Sue, Buck, Bai and Lexie went back to their place with Charly and Katy, Mike, Bell, Sam and Gypsy went back to theirs. Bry and John took Kimmy and Alex home and Di, Roan, Josie, Ellie, Rick, Rocky, Zoe and Benji and Skip and Jeff all went to spend the night at the Echo Park apartments (at least buying out the rest of the apartment block had given them plenty of rooms to put people up), while Rebecca, Lou and the girls took the spare rooms at the house. No-one was really surprised when Anna and Lou came out together in the morning, and Lou was the only one surprised when Chuck pushed a pile of paperwork across for her to sign at the breakfast table. When she just looked at him he spoke. "I'm sorry Lou, I'd just presumed that you'll be living and working with us….."

The others laughed when they saw the temper that they remembered. "Well of course I will be Chuck! I want our daughters to grow up knowing their father and as the General said that was part of the agreement for us to come here! But what's this Winkie Technology and why the hell do you want me to sign all these damned papers?"

Anna was shaking her head at Chuck with a smile, and he realised that they still hadn't explained any of this to Lou yet, so he took her up to his room to show her the business and building plans for what they were doing. When they entered the room, Lou looked around with a smile, because aside from the bigger bed and updated technology, it hadn't changed that much in the last eight years. They'd gone over most of the details by the time the girls appeared in the doorway, as they'd followed the laughter. They loved the look of the building where their Abba said that they'd be living, but they did a perfectly synchronised valley girl " _EWWWWWW!_ " when their Eema told them that they had been conceived in this very room.

Chuck also had to explain what he'd said to Rebecca to make her smile and hug him before they went outside the day before, and tell Lou all about the Emerald City facility they had near Eilat. They spent quite a bit of time on the phone to Israel that day, and Chuck and Rebecca did a quick trip to Israel with Ellie, Roan, Pops and Jimmy the day after Christmas to make the official arrangements for Ben and David Rabi to officially take over the Emerald City Facility at Eilat as soon as they were released from their military service requirements, and they would be moving to Eilat with their new wives as soon as the new Emerald City Research Facility at Eilat was completed. Once the initial construction work was done, Rebecca would be in Eilat while she oversaw the establishment of the Eilat Emerald City Research Facility, but when it was done she would be returning to California to work in the Arcadia Emerald City Research Facility with Lou, and also resume lecturing at Caltech as Professor Rabi.

* * *

When everything reopened after Christmas Two Thousand, Louisa Rabi was officially listed as the new head of the defence contractor Winkie Technology, and Lottie and Charlie were going to the same Middle School both of their parents had gone to up until Eema went to Israel, along with half of the family. By the time El Castillo (their building) was finished, they'd settled into a comfortable arrangement, most of them would be living in apartments at El Castillo, but they spend a lot of time at the house to be with the family, it was only down the road so that was no hassle. Ellie, Jeff, John, Bry, Skip and Jethro, Rick Noble, Wayne (Rocky) Johnson and Zoe Alleyne also had apartments at Echo Park, but Skip and Jethro were the only ones who actually lived there most of the time. Zoe had transferred to the Spectre Group and been assigned to the LA operation in Ninety Four after the bill banning women in combat was passed, because if she couldn't get combat advancement in the Army any more she couldn't see any point in staying in the regular Army units, so she transferred over to the Spectre Group and got to be with her son most of the time (Benjie was her and Rocky's son), she saw a lot more action with the group as well. Sam and Gypsy Colt, Robin Cunnings, Rick, Rocky, Albert Laurent and Vicky Dunwoody (another Lost Child) had _officially_ been added to the team by Auntie Di to beef up security with the recent family expansions and they would be working with the team at El Castillo...

The real reason though was that Ellie and Rick had hit it off when Auntie Phoebes brought her little Ricky (as a strapping six foot plus fourteen year old, Rick had _hated_ being called that, but as Rocky pointed out their Mama did whatever she wanted) over when they were all working together as a group to set up the Cinders organisation in Ninety and they had become a couple by the time Ellie turned sixteen. They had been apart for much of that time because Rick had been living with Auntie Phoebes' mother back east except for the holidays through High School and university. After university he went into the Army, and hence the Rangers until late Two Thousand when Di managed to get him and Rocky transferred to the Spectre Group, so he'd been away most of the time.

Rocky was Auntie Phoebe's eldest son, the result of Phoebe and Buck's celebrations after getting out of a really rough spot in Vietnam alive, but Buck had been thrown out of the Army in early Eighty Four and had a hit put out on him because they'd used him as the scapegoat to focus all the initial outrage over the US Invasion of Grenada on and tried to stage his death as a suicide (because he couldn't deal with the 'shame' of his actions) to prevent him telling the truth, so Rocky went into the Army ROTC program and became a Ranger officer to show his father that the bastards didn't win. When he joined the Army he met a firebrand female officer a couple of years older than him, Zoe Alleyne, and they fell in love. They got married in Eighty Nine when Zoe was pregnant with Benjie but Zoe kept her own name. Rocky was serving in Panama when Rocky was born and had made Major in the US Army Special Forces by the time Di got him transferred, he came into the Spectre group as a USA Major with a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars and a couple of Purple Hearts from Panama and the Gulf War...

Sam, Gypsy and their parents were brought into the family through Rocky, because he was incensed when the Marines tried to do exactly the same thing to Mike after Panama as the Army had tried to do to his father after Grenada, Rocky saved Mike from the hit and got him, Belle and Gypsy to safety. Sam and Gypsy had both been given their mother's surname because their father was off at war when they were born, in fact there was nothing official to link them and their mother to their father, so when they brought the four of them into the fold in Ninety and set them up in a new life... living in another house of the strip they built in Arcadia with Mike working for Pops' company Amaland Construction... Mike's surname had been changed to Colt to match the rest of the family when they came to Arcadia. While his cover job was in construction and he did work with the crew, especially in the early months when they were building the houses in Arcadia and El Monte Airport, he was working with the family and helping provide security for the group in Arcadia. Sam had in the Marines too by then, but they'd kept his link to his father, Colonel Hollis, a secret to avoid any charges of nepotism, so he just continued on as Sam Colt.

Albert had been one of the best the DGSE had in their Action Division's Special Forces, but when most of his team were wiped out in an operation because they had been sent into a dangerous situation with inadequate intel, the powers that be had decided to get rid of all evidence that they'd been there and called in a bombing strike on their location. Albert survived because he'd been blown into the river, but alive he represented a serious threat to the DGSE's reputation because he could testify to the fact that they'd been there, _and_ that they'd wiped out their own team to cover up that fact, so when they began to hear rumours that someone from the team had survived, they immediately put out kill on sight orders for everyone on the team. Chuck intercepted copies of that order and extracted details of the operation and what the powers that be had done to cover their arses, so they tracked Albert down and got him out before anyone else could find him. Albert was no fool and had no trouble accepting what they showed him, so he started a new life with them, with Bai actually after they met when he was moved to LA... It had been fun to watch Rocky playing the protective brother as he told his friend that he better do the right thing by his big sister or else and Bai slapping Rocky on the back of the head and reminding him that his niece over there was proof that she was no innocent virgin who needed her _honour_ protected, and that she was quite capable of looking after herself!... then hugging him for being a good brother...

Robin was the dark horse of the family, because when nineteen year old Special Forces Lieutenant Bryan Mills went out for one last night of fun before he was sent back to Vietnam for intelligence operations in early Seventy Two, he hooked up with nearly sixteen year old wild child Pam Landry, who had convinced him that she was eighteen. Bry was back in Vietnam and had effectively ceased to exist by the time that Pam discovered she was pregnant, so she gave in to her family's pressure and gave the baby up for adoption when she was born. Robin was adopted by a nice couple, the Cunnings, but she was a wild child like her mother, and like her she had joined the CIA as soon as she was able so that she could lead the exciting life of a spy. After the Piranha came into being, Chuck was checking any records related to anyone in the family and discovered that Uncle Bry had been named on the birth certificate of a CIA agent, Robin Cunnings, so they asked him about it and while he didn't know anything about being a father, he remembered the mother's name, so they tracked Pam Landry down and got the story out of her, then her parents contacted Robin and there was hell to pay... Robin forgave them... eventually... and they began enjoying the fact that they were a family, in the course of that Robyn and her mother were accepted into the extended family, and Robin met Sam and they became a couple. By the end of the Nineties Robin had well and truly had enough of the type of shit that female agents in the CIA had to put up with, so she resigned and joined the DIA/DCS, getting immediately assigned to the Spectre group... and Vicky was a very good operative who would be safer and more comfortable working with Chuck and other people she trusted.


	5. A Pair of Queens

**I shouldn't need to say this, but I probably do. The references to queens and the like do** ** _not_** **relate to** ** _anyone_** **in the** ** _real_** **world, and they're only applied in a derogatory manner to the** ** _character_** **Bryce Larkin,** ** _NOT_** **the actor who played Larkin.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale.**

* * *

By the time 'El Castillo' was finished, Mary and Chuck had made a few more phone calls to fill the armoury they were building for it to Chuck's requirements (especially with what Chuck added for the building's active security systems). They still had a lot of weapons left over from what they took from that auction, but there had been a lot of advances made in the last four years, and quite a few of the specialised weapons that they preferred were never made available to anyone but the military elite, so they still needed to obtain many of the 'special' items they wanted through their contacts. But even though most of them had seen, and had had some input into, the plans for El Castillo, they were still awed and amazed when they actually saw how it had come out. The tech businesses shared the expansive and well equipped computer, engineering and electronics labs out back (the 'Emerald City Research Facility' that Di had used to get agreement for Lou and Rebecca to relocate), and as no-one but them got to see inside the secure garage that took up the remainder of the ground floor, and the different segments of the garage were screened off from each other anyway, they brought their large collection of assorted vehicles in from the storage facilities around the city that they had been salted away in. There were a fair number of apparently (but not really) ordinary cars, vans, bikes and the like in there, but there were also quite a few millions of dollars worth of supercars, classics and limousines that they maintained to use on missions. (That was the official reason anyway, a good number of these had been collected or built to Chuck's specs for his, Ellie and Anna's use, and the others' as well to a lesser degree. Taking down dictators, warlords, drug lords and arms dealers and other major crime figures on a regular basis gave them access to their toys as well as their fortunes, so when Chuck found something he particularly liked he'd often add it to their collection, using the network of identities that he maintained in that world and their airline and shipping companies to get them back to LA via untraceable channels.)

As amazing as the ground floor was though, the 'Dungeon', as Anna had named it (they couldn't argue with the logic of that, as dungeons were almost obligatory for castles) was far more so. For a start, there was the massive 880 x 75 x 40 foot high tech urban combat range running right down one side for the entire length of the block, taking up the full height and a third of the width of the basement. For the other two thirds, they had quite comfortable two or three bedroom apartments, cinemas, bars, common areas, store rooms and the like on the top level. The middle level was taken up by the operations centre, meeting rooms, medical centre, store rooms and whatever else was expected in a base of operations for a major operation. And the armoury, gym, dojo, pool and a plethora of other things (including a far more serious computer lab than anything upstairs, Caltech would have been jealous of what they had down there) took up the bottom level.

Of course, the Bananas in Pyjamas posters that Ellie, Gypsy, Anna, Lou, Skip, Benjie and the girls put up on B1 in the Dungeon raised more than a few questions, as did the 'Cuddles Avenue' prefix that showed up for access to the Dungeon levels by the private elevators located in the 'executive bathrooms' on the ground floor and the life sized pictures of most of them dressed up in full Rocky Horror Show regalia (especially Chuck as Dr Frank. N. Furter in stripper heels, fishnets, garter belt and the rest) from the Rocky Horror Show themed Halloween party they'd had at Echo Park in Two Thousand in Rocky's bar come private dance club on B1, but no-one outside of their group ever saw those and most of them had been at that party. All up, between purchasing the property and the 'renovations' to create the facility, El Castillo had cost nearly Forty Million, but that wasn't a problem for them. It was more difficult to structure their lives in a way which at least paid lip service to the minimum wage cover lives that the cover bureau was still trying to push down their throats... Which was something that Ellie decided to do something about now that Chuck had created the framework for a whole new world for them.

Much of the First, Second and Third floors going up and B1, B2 and B3 going down were still empty and unfinished, they'd done all the structural work and laid in the plumbing, core wiring etc, but everything else was left until it was needed. About half of the Third Floor and B1 had been fitted out with quite nice apartments, and Chuck intended to move into the one he'd designed for himself on the Third floor as soon as possible, and so did Anna, Lou and the girls, because they would all be together and it was still close to the girls' school and the other places they had to be taken for gymnastics, dance classes and the like.

* * *

The level of Walker's opposition to that 'special' training and the reports from Bentley, the Farm and that first idiot about her development and performance on test missions made Graham decide to accelerate his plans for her. She was obviously capable of carrying out missions on her own and was getting stronger all the time, so he decided to start knocking any and all moral objections out of her while he still could, in an effort to ensure that she'd do whatever he told her to. Her fear for her mother had been enough to keep her under control so far, but if she told Bentley about that... it would almost certainly interfere with his plans, because Bentley knew enough about how things were done to convince her to demand _proof_ that he really had her mother, so he needed to have her broken enough to ensure her obedience before that happened.

Sarah started getting sent on solo missions on weekends, but she could hardly walk when she got back from the first couple of missions because Graham had in fact set her up to be gang raped, and then released with the inconsequential 'intel' she'd been sent for once they were all done with her. Jane sat her down and _made_ her listen to her after the second time this happened, firstly telling her to make Graham give her _proof_ that he had her mother just as he'd surmised, but also explaining to her that unless the target had been identified as having proven on-going value that necessitated keeping them alive going into the mission, Graham had no cause to do anything to her or her mother as long as she achieved the mission objectives. If that bastard wanted to send her on a real agent's mission, real agents' rules had to apply, and if he tried to argue that they didn't apply because it wasn't a real mission, she'd bring the bastard down for sending her in to be raped like that.

So the next time she was being sent in like that, Sarah asked a few careful questions about the targets, and after Graham impatiently confirmed that it was just what they had that was important, she killed everyone in the house when they went to start on her and walked out with the intel in less than an hour, leaving a total bloodbath behind her. When he started threatening that her mother would pay for what she'd done, she played the card that Jane had told her to play and demanded to see proof that he had her mother. He showed her some carefully staged images of a woman who _could_ be her mother but Sarah rejected them immediately, saying that none of these photos showed enough to prove that this was her mother _or_ that he had her, then she looked him in the eye and repeated what Jane had told her about the fact that unless the target was _proven_ to be of high on-going value, an operative could not be penalised in _any_ way so long as they achieved the mission objectives, which she had. Graham scowled at her for a bit and then just told her to get out.

* * *

Graham wished he could just get rid of Bentley, but the bitch had been canny enough to make sure she got an official record of their agreement before she started this assignment, and Walker's record so far showed that Bentley was doing a better job of training her than anyone else could…. Shit, at seventeen she was already more accomplished than most of their senior agents, certainly far more than her father had ever been….

Joe Blake's talents had never been anything more than physical, that was why when _he_ disappeared they hadn't bothered doing anything beyond putting out a termination order on him, but he _had_ been almost good enough to make SAD and he could charm the pants off most woman, as he proved when even the brilliant Fox fell for his charms… If that union hadn't created something as incredible as Sarah Walker, he'd be sorely tempted to track down whatever idiot ever let Joe Blake come in contact with the Fox and ensure that they suffered a very slow and painful death, because that had ultimately led to them losing the Fox, and _that_ had set the CIA back years, if not more. Mind you, seeing what happened when those types of physical talents were combined with a brilliant mind like her's made him wonder what had happened to Frost and Orion's children, because Frost had been as far ahead of everyone else twenty five years ago as Walker was now, so combining her abilities with Orion's brain would have almost certainly created something just as incredible there.

He snorted, thinking that women of that calibre appeared to be more choosy than other women though, because he'd heard that Walker had already earned herself the name the Ice Queen for pretty much the same reason the Frost Queen got her name in training, they both froze out any man stupid enough to try and play them like they did other women, and beat them down if they didn't get the message. As he recalled, Frost had never fallen for Blake's act either, but somehow she fell for Orion…. He shook his head at that, if he'd reassigned Frost when he saw what was happening they might have managed to hang onto them, but he'd thought at the time that it would give him something to hold over them, like he was holding the threat of punishing her mother over Walker….. That reminded him to make sure he put the fear of god into those techs to inspire them to come up with more convincing 'proof' that they had the Fox, those pictures had looked good to him but Walker had seen through them straight away.

With that he went back to thinking what Walker's next mission would be... he was tempted to just tell her that the targets were too important to kill so she'd have to put up with what they did to her, but that Bentley bitch probably had enough connections to dig up the truth, and he wasn't about to use _real_ high value targets for that type of mission in case she just killed them anyway. Perhaps it would be better to just give her real missions, real targets that she'd have the option of getting the intel from without killing them if they didn't cross whatever line she'd drawn in her head now….

He couldn't forget the end plan here, because Walker was the only one available who had proved that they what it took to match Frost... the only upside of what happened on that mission was that she proved she was far more dangerous than anyone could have believed, looking at that angel's face of her's. After all, that was what he'd flagged her for when he saw what she did to those bikers who decided that she'd make a fun party favour back when she was fifteen, and unlike the others she'd lived up to that promise.… Hansen _had_ shown promise, the way she'd taken out all those jocks with nothing but a cork screw like that, but she wasn't enough to take on Frost.

He didn't believe for a second that Frost wasn't still out there, or that he wouldn't be first on her list when she decided to start going after the ones who destroyed her family, so he _needed_ Walker. Having her as a robot who did whatever she was told without question would have been preferable, but he'd take a highly competent and lethal operative who was worried enough about what he might do to her mother to obey him, and hopefully if he stopped pushing her so hard she'd stop demanding to see the proof that he didn't have…. So that's what he'd do, keep her on the go so she didn't have time to think things through, and stop pushing her enough to motivate her to put that brain she got from her mother to work on finding a way out out.

* * *

That was largely how it went for the rest of Sarah's time at Harvard, she had no trouble keeping well ahead of the course schedule while staying up around the top of all her classes, which gave her plenty of time to devote to her other training with 'Aunt Jane' and others. She didn't have anyone who was anything more than a classmate to her and they'd put the story about that she was from a strict Christian family to explain why she'd never been part of the party scene, which meant that no-one noticed when some of her nights, most of her weekends and some of the breaks were spent away on missions. At least Graham had stopped demanding that she use sex to get what she was sent for out of the targets, he still prodded sometimes of course but he didn't argue so long as she got what she was sent for, not even when she killed the targets, both she and Jane were suspicious about that but they were prepared to take what they could get.

Some weekends and most of the breaks were spent away on advanced training, and she actually found that she enjoyed most of this. Some of the technical training was challenging enough to stretch her and she got advanced driving lessons with all sorts of cars and motorbikes, special operations training with the CIA's SAD guys, and she learned how to fly! They'd created Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force officer identities for her before she left high school (surprisingly, they'd let her use cover names that she was used to from her father's cons for most of them so that she'd have less trouble remembering them, so she'd used Caitlin O'Connell for her Navy ID, Rebecca Franco for the Marines and Ilana Truffaut for her Air Force one, and she had to admit that that had made things easier, but they'd insisted that the Army one she used the most _had_ to be this Sarah Walker), and these were used for much of her advanced training.

Most of the planes and helicopters she was certified on were the type of utility and transport craft that she'd be likely to come across on missions (though she liked the business jets and fast helicopters), but Graham _also_ had her certified on F-5Es, F/A-18s and F-16s in case she needed to 'borrow' a supersonic jet for a mission (that reasoning sounded pretty flimsy to her, but she wasn't going to say no to a chance like that), and flying a plane at supersonic speeds was a blast for someone who loved to going fast like she did. The first time she went supersonic, she remembered that news story about those Air Force test pilots taking the Blackbird well past Mach 3 on each leg of one of its last flights before it was retired to give it its last hurrah in early Ninety Nine, and she'd wished that she could have been the one to do that. She was reminded of that in late 2002 when she watched the report of another Air Force Test Pilot taking a MiG-25 well past Mach 3 on its last flight to the Air Force Museum, but she consoled herself with the thought that she'd gotten to take an F-16 to Mach 2, and that was more than most people could ever hope for.

With her eidetic memory, she had little trouble getting certified on new aircraft much faster than most pilots, and she had been intrigued to find that people had talked about a Mowgli and Raksha who'd come through between four and eight years earlier and had picked up things as fast as she did at the Air Force, Army _and_ Navy flight schools. The strange thing was, those names had _also_ come up in her special operations training in regard to people who came through there in the same period, though one of the SAD guys had said that she may well run into Mowgli at least on a mission some time because he tended to turn up on very difficult missions, and she gave off the same vibe. She dismissed her initial thoughts that these might all be referring to the same people as ridiculous, because she knew that she was only getting trained to this level in so many different areas because Graham had some grand plan for her, and very few people had the sort of power needed to push these things through like he did, she had to wonder what was going on there though.

* * *

The way Chuck had set the systems up in El Castillo, they could access their profiles and virtual systems from anywhere in the building, so he could, say, start something in his office and pick it up in his apartment or down in the Dungeon. There was one window that he had constantly running and accessed quite often, the one that displayed the search engines that were running for Sammie, Jill, the Ice Queen and 'Graham's Enforcer'.

Around two years after they left Stanford, references to two new players in the CIA had started popping up, one called 'The Enforcer' or 'Graham's Enforcer'... who seemed very much like the Ice Queen... and the other called 'The Golden Boy' or 'Graham's Golden Boy'.

The more reports about this Golden Boy he saw though, the more questions they raised. The Ice Queen and the Enforcer were both obviously hell on wheels, capable of doing just about anything, but while the references to the Golden Boy were usually positive, especially the ones coming from women, the evidence listed for his missions appeared to contradict those reports, because while his official achievements were generally impressive, any agents working with him showed up as markedly below than their normal performance, and many of them were being reported as being injured or killed too.

That was why it made even less sense when he started seeing references to the Enforcer and the Golden Boy working together a few years later, why the hell would Graham shackle what was obviously one of his best operatives with something like _that_? He saw that they were achieving good results together, but what they were achieving together wasn't up to what the Enforcer had been doing on her(?) own, so he couldn't understand why Graham would do that. Everything he'd been told and remembered about Graham said that he was an evil bastard, but he'd never seen any indication of him being stupid, and this definitely appeared to be stupid.

Another thing that bothered him was the fact that references to the Ice Queen seemed to have stopped around the time the Enforcer and the Golden Boy were teamed up, had she been killed on a mission somewhere? He didn't really understand it, but that possibility upset him, as he'd always had this thought in the back of his mind that he'd like to meet this woman, because she sounded incredible. Then... about two years later... there was a sudden spike of new reports about the Ice Queen, with comments about her being free of the tool and back to kicking arses and taking names again, and Chuck had to laugh at himself about how ridiculous it was to feel so relieved when he saw that.

* * *

All their plans were forgotten a week and a half into September 2001, as the news that went around the world on the Eleventh made many people forget what they'd been planning. The impact on some was for an hour, others for a day, but others would have to deal with its effects for the rest of their lives. While the news of the attack on the twin towers broke over them like a wave, the other attacks didn't have the same impact once they'd confirmed that Auntie Di (their first priority, seeing as she had an office in the Pentagon), Uncle Roan and the other people they knew in DC and New York were OK. It took them longer to find out that a few of the people they worked with and were friendly with (you couldn't exactly call people friends when you couldn't afford to let them see your face or hear your unaltered voice because there was no way that they wouldn't spot that you're ten to fifteen years younger than your identity, or risk that they might recognise a long term fugitive from the CIA or famous operatives like John and Uncle Bry) had in fact been in the towers when they went down.

Every other job they had was put aside to work on hunting down and evaluating information relating to the attacks, even John and Uncle Bry dove into tracing the information. Those who only saw Old Ironpants and didn't know Diane Beckman well enough to see past the mask might have believed that she was revelling in the acclaim and power that she was accruing from her group delivering two thirds of the actionable intel coming out in the wake of the attacks, but Di was breaking inside. She knew, and had been friends and family with, people who had been lost, and she couldn't get the image of the rest of the men, women and children who had fallen to this out of her head either.

Luckily, in the wave of shock and anguish that followed the attacks, no-one paid that much attention when people didn't turn up for classes, or even work, so they were free to devote all of their time to investigating the matter, passing along any actionable intel as soon as it had been confirmed. Even on the first day though, there was an undercurrent of suspicion growing in parts of the intelligence community, because the powers that be were ignoring the valid intel they were being given and _ordering_ investigations to go in other directions without any evidence to support their decisions.

Chuck, John, Bry, Roan, Mary, Sue, Anna, Ellie, Bai, Zoe, Robin, Sam, Gypsy, Rocky, Rick and even Jeff, Skip, Emma and Lou were all being sent off on missions within a few days after the attacks, though over half of Bry and Roan's missions were as part of the CIA contingent. The problem was that they were always being sent in the wrong direction, so while they saw a lot of action, added to their medal counts and gained more promotions from their parts in these missions, they found very little to do with what they were supposedly there to look into, because they were in the wrong place for that.

By the time the initial retaliation strikes to the attacks had settled down to become part of the War on Terror, their groups had a notably higher profile than they'd had before the attacks, because anyone who knew anything recognised that they had been the ones who were managing to locate the information that no-one else could. With the increased interest in their groups, they had to expand to meet demand, so Di, Emma, Mary, Ellie and Chuck had to go through the process of interviewing and selecting suitable people to bring in. With the new people spread around the country, and some overseas, it wasn't too hard to set it up so that there was very little face to face communication, other than with the newly minted Brigadier General Diane Beckman.

All of their new and expanded groups were bundled into what was now widely known as the Spectre group. There were more than a few questions about why a shiny new one star General was meeting with the National Security Advisor so often, and no-one bought the line that they were just two friends meeting for drinks much of the time (quite aside from anything else, most didn't believed that Old Ironpants _had_ any friends). There were also questions about how Navy Commanders Charles Carmichael and Eleanora Hunter came to be promoted to Captains, Lieutenant Commander Anna Wang was promoted to Commander and Air Force Lieutenant Colonels Marie Lestrange and Emmeline Boudreaux were promoted to full Colonels in December 2001 once the initial flurry of activity after Nine Eleven died down, because Carmichael and Hunter were only halfway to the minimum time in grade. Neither the fact that these officers were all part of the new General's command, or that their questions had been shut down without any explanation by the Secretary of Defense sat well with most of the people asking.

* * *

The pandemonium that followed Nine Eleven gave Ellie the perfect opportunity to escape from the stupid cover life that those idiots at the Cover Bureau had forced on her. When they were all called away for the initial post Nine Eleven missions, Chuck had done his normal trick and inserted post dated approved holiday plans into the hospital system to cover for her absence, but Ellie realised that this would be her best chance to disappear, so she got him to make the records show that she'd gone to a medical conference in New York, that way when they looked into it when she didn't return to work, everyone would believe that she'd been one of the thousands who had died in the twin towers.

Westside had never been anything but a dead end that was forced on Eleanor Bartowski by the Cover Bureau... Ellie had gotten into medicine to try and find a way to help her father, but she was getting nowhere with that because of the path she'd been forced down by the Cover Bureau. On the other hand Eleanora _Hunter_ had graduated Summa Cum Laude from Harvard Medical School ( _and_ magna cum laude from Harvard Law and Business Schools with the same joint JD/MBA degrees as Sarah did, a few years earlier), which was quite enough to get her into the Department of Neurology at the University of California Irvine's School of Medicine, which had the best Neurology research program in Los Angeles in a research capacity, but she started to wonder whether she would get much further with them when she considered that option.

Talking this over with Chuck and the others, they pointed out that she could do everything but physically study patients right there in El Castillo, and they could easily set something up for that if she needed it. They also pointed out that she already had half the facilities she needed for a world class research facility in the Dungeon's medical centre, and they would get her whatever else she wanted or needed. What's more, they had far better facilities for computer modelling than any medical facility, as well as the _only_ viable test subjects for the specific field she was looking into. She couldn't argue with Auntie Em's other point either, that the brain trust that was her family was almost certainly better than anything she could possibly find anywhere else so it just didn't make sense to shackle herself into 'doing her time' at something like UCI, going through the same old outmoded clinical processes and requirements that had nothing to do with what she wanted to find an answer to. She could be working with the best people in the world virtually, and if she needed to work face to face, she could take one of the jets as they could get her just about anywhere in the world with one or two fuel stops. That was why the El Castillo Neurological Research Facility was created.

Of course, she did have to put her foot down and tell Auntie Di that she wasn't going to devote _all_ the hours she'd been spending at the Medical Centre to Spectre work when they 'killed off' Eleanor Bartowski, she _was_ going to have at least three or four hours a day to work on her research, and more if she needed it! After all that was what they'd created the research facility for! While Di wanted to argue that the Spectre work was more important than research at the moment, she _did_ want Stephen fixed as well, and more importantly…. She knew that she'd lose most, if not _all_ of them if she pushed too hard. If that happened the legacy of the country's elite intelligence and special operations organisation that she was working to create would be finished, so she bit her tongue.

Skip had finally gotten sick of Devon's stupid and irritating comments, continually trying to prove that he was a lady's man in public and demanding to know where he was going whenever he went anywhere, so when Ellie Bartowski 'died', he used the excuse of being infuriated by Devon's callous reaction to him losing someone who'd been like a sister to him to kick him out and lock him out of the complex. Devon had turned up with a group of his old frat buddies soon after that to set Skip straight (IE: Beat on him until he gave in and took him back.), but the complex security had kept them outside until a couple of carloads of the biggest, meanest looking guys from the group turned up to tell them that if they didn't stop bothering their friends, there was going to be serious trouble. Apparently most of Devon's friends were much like him (thick as a brick), because when faced with a group of obviously dangerous men like these, they came in swinging, _baseball bats_ , which just made things worse. Of course the cops came when the ambulances were called, but they'd videoed the whole thing from several angles so it was quite clear that they had merely been defending themselves against armed attackers, and Roan turned up soon after as the lawyer for family (he was staying at El Castillo to oversee the construction of the Keep among other things, so he just waited a while after the boys left then headed out in the SLR to do his part).

He told the officers that any unjust charges or comments made to the press in regard to any of his clients would have the Los Angeles Police Department tied up in a lawsuit that it couldn't win, and with what that would cost the city, he didn't see much chance of them keeping their jobs. They took in his Armani suit and the Mercedes SLR he'd arrived in, and decided that they weren't about to risk their jobs over some idiot frat boys who had been dumb enough to attack a group of dangerous looking characters for no good reason with baseball bats _on camera_ , so they just politely asked for a copy of those videos for their report before they left.

After that, Skip moved into an apartment in El Castillo so that Woodcomb and his buddies couldn't find him. (Woodcomb didn't know anything about the houses in Arcadia or El Castillo as Skip and Ellie had both been living at Echo Park when he met him and they gave him made up back stories for themselves.)

With that, the blonde Ellie Bartowski was replaced by the brunette Ellie Hunter and they essentially had both the Cover Bureau and Devon Woodcomb out of their lives. Aside from being devastated about all the lives that had been ruined by those terrorists, things were looking up for them.

* * *

Sarah was even more pissed at Graham by the end of Two Thousand and One, because word was that, just as that SAD guy had told her when she was in training, Mowgli had been called in for those first priority missions in Afghanistan just after Nine Eleven, but while she was meant to be part of those operations too, Graham had changed his mind and decided that her talents would be better used elsewhere. This pissed her off for two reasons, the first being that she'd really been looking forward to meeting this legend that she'd heard so much about, because the SAD and SOG guys who talked about him didn't just respect the hell out of him, they genuinely _liked_ him. The idea that a legendary figure like this could be a 'quiet but really nice young guy, not like Baloo' intrigued her, because she'd heard enough about this Baloo to know that _he_ was the type of hard-bitten and accomplished warrior who was normally these guys' hero, and he was just this Mowgli's _sidekick_?

The other reason it pissed her off was that Graham had made it quite clear what he meant by 'talents', but no matter what he said she was _not_ going to screw every suspected terrorist they sent her after. She got the information she was sent after of course, she charmed it out of them if they didn't get too pushy and used more drastic measures if they did, and none of it had been important enough to give in to Graham's demands in her opinion. These operations made a few very gory additions to the stories about the Ice Queen coming from the ones who had to clean up after her, but those stories helped scare off some of the idiots who were convinced that bagging the Ice Queen would be a major notch in their belts, so that was a plus in her book.

She _did_ participate in some of the later missions in Afghanistan, but while they were major operations and achieved quite a bit, she'd missed seeing this Mowgli so she was pissed at Graham for taking away her chance to meet him. The method she used to take out some of the hardest sites came to be called the 'exploding captive' act, she'd allow herself to be captured and dragged into the facility for the usual purposes, but as soon as she was inside she'd make as much mess as possible by taking out as many of them as she could, and the mayhem she caused usually distracted them enough for the rest of their forces to breach the facility without too much resistance. The beauty of that name was that the other side thought that they were using suicide bombers, so they could keep using it.

Graham did manage to shock her (and Jane) though, because he turned up at their apartment one night a few months after the post Nine Eleven activity had died down and presented her with a medal for her contributions to the big fight, the Distinguished Intelligence Cross (what she achieved over there had been reported far and wide and he had pretty much been forced to reward her appropriately by the National Security Advisor, on the President's orders). Jane's expression both when she saw the medal and when Graham told Sarah that she was only the second woman to ever get this medal prompted her to ask who the first woman was. Graham just looked at her when she asked that and she was sure that he was going to ignore the question, but eventually he said. "Frost, the one you took most of those records at the Farm off."

That prompted other questions but she knew she'd pushed her luck far enough as it was, so she just thanked him and he left.

When he was gone, they did what they could to circumvent the bugs that they knew would be right through the apartment and Jane explained the significance of that medal to her. Jane was in tears when she asked her to keep it safe for her, and she promised that she would.

* * *

Bryce Larkin had been at the Farm, bemoaning his fate, since he left Stanford. About a week after he got Bartowski kicked out, a virus had wiped out his laptop and he lost all the evidence he had on Fleming, what they used to get rid of Bartowski, everything! but Bartowski had already disappeared so he couldn't confirm that that was what he was getting at when he said that he'd get his as he was leaving with his stuff. What Fleming had said about Bartowski not seeming to be too worried about being expelled also seemed to say that he had something up his sleeve, so Bryce got his parents to call in enough favours to get him out of there before the situation embarrassed the family (and more to the point, caught up to _him_ ). They made up an excuse about him needing to go back East urgently for specialised medical treatment due to complications arising from blows to the head inflicted by Bartowski in an unprovoked attack as he was leaving to get projected results posted for his final exams and his degrees issued early on that basis, which the university agreed to to avoid getting sued (that worked out well for them).

As soon as he'd left, the CIA's techs scrubbed every reference to him except for his final results and degrees that were kept on file from Stanford's systems, so he pretty much disappeared. Stanford didn't discovered this until Bartowski came back a month later with proof of the fabricated case against him, but when they went to Larkin's family to question him about it he'd disappeared to them as well. To all intents and purposes, Bryce Larkin had ceased to exist outside of some code name classified files at the CIA that very few people could access in May 2000.

Stanford _did_ successfully sue the Larkin family to recover a third of Bartowski's settlement from them, using the evidence which proved that Larkin had been the one behind the fabrication of the case against Bartowski. In the end it took threats of going public with _all_ of the evidence about their son's activities to make the Larkins cave in, but the hypocrisy of a university in the gay capital of America using the threat of publicly outing their son as gay to make them cave didn't bother the Stanford officials when they were talking about Eight Million Dollars, after all it wasn't as if the Larkins would be telling anyone about it...

They had less trouble seizing everything Fleming owned (about Five and a Half Million, so he'd obviously diverted a hell of a lot of money into his private accounts and assets) in an uncontested Court case, but all up they were still down over Fourteen Million because of Charles Bartowski and that lawyer of his (the fact that the events leading to both settlements had been quite avoidable but they still hadn't fixed the core problems in the university that led to them was ignored by its officials, of course).

When Bryce left Stanford, he was supposed to go straight into Project Omaha to get started on the grand plan he had waiting for him though, _not_ to go to the Farm for sixteen months of torture training! Apparently the ones working on Project Omaha code hadn't managed to finish it yet, so the powers that be decided that the time would be best spent getting the Omaha candidate through all other aspects of his training. With that thought in mind, they sent him to the Farm and told the people running the Farm to push him through the system as a priority recruit.

Unfortunately for Larkin, they also told them that the CIA had a lot riding on him, so they were looking to see him beat the Ice Queen's scores…. because after all, as impressive as she was, she was just a woman, and a very young one at that. The way Larkin pissed people off with his attitude and over-inflated opinion of himself as soon as he got there meant that the word being gleefully passed around about him quickly became that the people at the top expected him to be better than the Ice Queen or else! As a result, Larkin was in constant pain from pretty much the day he arrived, and for all the way he flinched at what he saw had been done to him in the mirror, his ego took more of a battering than anything else.

* * *

At the end of Two Thousand and One, Larkin was furious. He'd shown them on the missions he did after Nine Eleven that he was a real agent, he'd done a damned sight better than the so-called experienced agents he'd been working with, if he did say so himself, but they just sent him straight back here to finish his damned training as soon as they were done. They even marked his record with some shit about failing to show proper respect to the fallen.

He knew he wasn't handling this as well as he could have, he was doing pretty good at the physical aspects of the training, doing better than most of the other recruits, but it was never good enough in the eyes of the trainers….

He shook his head at that, angry at himself because he had to admit that he'd really screwed up... he _definitely_ should have done his homework before he tried to work the trainers here the same way he had the Professors at Stanford. If he had he would have known that offering sexual favours to men in this type of environment was as good as putting your head on the chopping block.

Even if they _were_ inclined that way, none of them would ever allow that to get out in an environment like this, so that marked him as trouble, and they didn't like trouble. If he hadn't come in as someone's Golden Boy who was slated for something important he would have almost certainly had a fatal accident, but as it was they merely tried to work him to death, referring to him as 'the Queen' whenever other recruits couldn't hear and beating him when they thought they could get away with it.

That was something else that he couldn't understand, no matter how well he'd done, the trainers would just tell him that he hadn't matched the 'other Queen's scores yet so he had to go again. He wanted to tell them to fuck off, but he'd quickly learnt that aching from muscle strain hurt less than the beatings that talking back got him. But the thing was, if they reviled him for being a Queen, why did they all appear to _revere_ this _other_ 'Queen'?

One thing was obvious though, he wasn't going to get to Project Omaha by playing the game by their rules, so he revised his plan and started working the administration staff at the Farm. Even they had to be handled a lot more carefully than anyone at Stanford had though, because enough 'bright young' recruits had tried to get around the system that way for them to be watching for it, so he had to move slowly to avoid giving the game away. Not that there was any great hurry, because the only news that ever came through from Project Omaha was that there were more delays.

* * *

Bryce had an incentive to get through this though, that offer he got from Roberts' Uncle Bernie. Fleming had told him that being the successful Omaha Candidate would take him straight to the top of the food chain as an agent, he'd live the high life, all those other bastards would bow down to him and he could have any of those beautiful agents he wanted…. from then on, the only cock getting sucked would be _his_!

While that had sounded pretty good though, what Fulcrum was offering was so much better. _Their_ offer was ten million up front and anything he asked for if he brought them the result of Project Omaha once it had successfully been loaded into him. Let those other idiots worship God and country, his allegiance was to Bryce Larkin! He hadn't needed any time to think it over, he'd promised 'Uncle Bernie' to contact them as soon as he had it loaded.

He could see it now, the day he got to have everything he wanted and started extracting his retribution on everyone who'd gotten in his way or crossed him, and Bartowski and his parents were right up there on _that_ list, but he had to get through this damned spy school for that to happen!

He had too much to lose to risk getting caught, so it took him months to carefully coax the admins into starting to modify his records for him, and even then he couldn't afford to take anything but small steps, he'd have to get to the point where he was close to passing a given course before they'd put in a passing grade for him into the system, and then some time after that he'd get one of the others to amend those results to show that he'd smashed it.

No matter what he tried, he couldn't find out anything about who this other Queen that the damned trainers were measuring him against was, so he had to make guesses about how high to push his scores to show on paper at least that he'd beaten him, without making them so high that alarm bells would go off. The trainers just presumed that the ones who sent Larkin here were getting impatient and told the ones running the Farm up to push the Queen through faster when they saw his records, because he had actually passed most of their courses and was above average if he were being compared to the general recruits after all the extra motivation they'd given him, they were just using the mandate that he had to outperform the Ice Queen to have fun punishing the little bastard by forcing him to chase a standard that he'd never have any hope of reaching…. shit, they couldn't think of _anyone_ who could outperform the Ice Queen, unless those legends about Mowgli were true.

The non-physical courses were generally easier to get through for Bryce, some he got through OK, others he struggled in, but it was easier to convince people to give him passing grades for them, and then he'd just get the admins to alter the scores to what he believed he deserved.

* * *

All up, it took Larkin over eighteen months at the Farm to get anything like the type of scores that were expected of him. The people running the farm knew for a fact that the little tool hadn't earned the scores that had been recorded for him but, much like the trainers, they just presumed that someone above them had organised it so that their 'Golden Boy' looked good on paper. Truth be told, they all just wanted to be shot of him, so they didn't question it. Their parting words to him may have been framed as congratulatory, but Larkin was bright enough to get the message 'Don't let the door hit you in the arse on the way out Douche!'.

Larkin didn't care! He was finally back on track, heading to Project Omaha to make his way to his rightful place at the top of the heap.

While no-one would tell him where Project Omaha was based, from the uniforms and facilities there and what he'd seen from the plane on the way in, he was on a military base somewhere close to DC. Larkin wasn't worried, he'd find someone who could get word out to Fulcrum for him when the time came.

What he _was_ worried about though was that these _scientists_ wouldn't accept anything at face value and wanted to check everything (or rather, _confirm the results_ as they were so fond of saying) time and time again. Luckily, they decided to first put him through months of training intended to maximise his image retention abilities because they still hadn't gotten the code of the Intersect, as the program was apparently called, working to their satisfaction.

As a result, he spent his days working on variations of Fleming's Subliminal Imagery module and other spy stuff, as well as exercising and sparring. Luckily he could hold his own as far as the athletics and sparring went and there was no scoring on the other lessons he was going through, so the only thing he had to worry about was that Subliminal Imagery crap. As far as that was concerned though, they were giving him the means to get on top of this. If _Bartowski_ could ace that test without any preparation, he was _sure_ to top his results after all of these exercises he was working through. He'd spent enough time stuck with that dweeb to know that he was nothing special, that was why he could never understand what Roberts or the professors saw in him, but at least Roberts came to her senses in the end and saw who was the best.

After about four months of this, the scientists decided that they were ready to start trying Intersect tests, so they had Larkin do the Subliminal Imagery test again. When he only scored in the mid-eighties, they wanted to know what the hell was going on, and made him do it over, and over, and over again. The best result he could get was in the high eighties, and that was with making good guesses on the ones he had no idea about.

* * *

This of course raised serious questions about the discrepancies in the results. The CIA went straight to Stanford to find out where Fleming was now so that they could drag him in to explain, but the people at Stanford swore that they had no idea where he'd gone when he left in 2000, so the CIA started searching for him. The very few people at Stanford who _did_ know what had happened to Fleming were keeping their lips zipped, because that Bartowski business had cost the university Twenty Four Million and done quite a bit of damage to their reputation, even with everything they did to keep it quiet. If it ever got out how many students Fleming had used falsified records and the promise of assistance to pressure into providing sexual favours to him over the years, the university would be ruined! The number of _under aged_ students that Fleming had preyed on made it even worse, because he seemed to have preferred the young and innocent ones. Special Agent Harris had handed over copies of all of the recordings and altered records for all the students that Fleming had scammed into giving him sexual favours over a three and a half year period, and the university people were horrified. To be fair, some of them _were_ actually horrified about what Fleming had been doing, but the others were only thinking about what would happen to the university if the families of those and other students ever found about this.

That was why George Fleming had been buried in prison, with friends of the university ensuring that a 'clerical error' was made to alter his name enough to almost guarantee that he wouldn't be found. The plan had been to keep him in there long enough for any of the students he'd preyed on to be long gone and then release him, but some of the other prisoners had overheard the morally outraged Dean from Stanford shouting at him about forcing under age girls to have sex with him and word had quickly spread around the prison that he was a child molester. Men in prison appeared to hate child molesters even more than anyone else, possibly because they couldn't protect their own children from them while they're locked away, and that had made Fleming a target. He was shivved to death about three months after he got there and cremated under the name that he was incarcerated as, so George Fleming had disappeared and the CIA would get no answers from him.

When they couldn't find Fleming, and no matter how many SI tests he did, Larkin couldn't get higher than the mid to high eighties, they started looking into reasons for his score dropping. They debated whether the year and a half of intensive training at the Farm may have caused it, but that idea was dismissed when it was pointed out that he'd been out of that for over four months. In the end, it was the lies that he and his family had made up to get him out of Stanford before the truth could catch up with him that were accepted as the answer, because they'd gotten doctors' reports to say that multiple blows to the head with some sort of blunt object had caused head trauma and that was why he was being rushed back east for specialised treatment.

The neurologists that Project Omaha consulted opined that head trauma of that nature could indeed result in the lower results that they were seeing here, so they sat down to debate how to proceed. The Omaha scientists argued that if the candidate had the native capacity required, they should load the Intersect anyway and do what they could to get it working. Graham and other senior CIA people on the other hand looked at the enormous investment that they now had in Larkin (especially if you added in the two years of Project Omaha's budget that had mainly been spent pushing to get the Intersect working for him) and his results from the Farm, which were outstanding on paper at least, and overruled the scientists. The decision was made to send Larkin into the field and make use of his exceptional skills there, in hope of getting some value out of the investment they had in him.

So, in May 2002, Bryce Larkin became Director Graham's newest Golden Boy field agent.

* * *

What would have surprised the people who actually knew him was that Larkin was regarded as quite a successful field agent, because while not brilliant himself, he did have a genius for finding people who could get him what he needed, and make him look good. He also had a definite knack for finding scapegoats to cover for him whenever he screwed up. The fact that he could charm the pants off most men and women to get what he needed and had no qualms about doing whatever it took to get the job done and advance his own interests without a second thought didn't hurt him at all either.

What that added up to was that by most standards, Larkin actually was a reasonable agent, but on paper he was one of the best, which was in part how he ended up getting what he'd been after for five years, because he was sitting in Langston Graham's office in early 2005, being introduced to his new partner, Sarah Walker, the Ice Queen.

Of course, the main reason was that Graham had to cover his arse, because it was on record that it had cost the CIA umpteen million dollars to get his Golden Boy to this point so many people were asking why he wasn't delivering anything like what would be needed to justify that kind of investment. On the other hand, Sarah Walker's achievements were enough to make a dozen ordinary agents look damned good, so the plan was to use her to bring out the ability that Larkin's records said he had, and put an end to those questions about why so much money had been wasted on him.

* * *

Coming up to her final exams at Harvard in April 2002, Sarah Walker (or rather the Ice Queen, as that was the only name most people in the CIA knew her by now) had completed an unprecedented number of missions, with an unparalleled success rate to boot, in the past three and a half years…. but Sarah was upset because 'Aunt Jane' had been the closest thing to family she'd had since the day her father took her away from everyone she loved, and she'd be losing that in just over a month if they made her a full agent when she graduated from Harvard. Jane could see what was going through her head and sat her down to talk about it.

"I know I complained about how taking on the job of becoming your handler was going backwards for me three and a half years ago, but you know that I've loved our time here together, and that I care about you, don't you?" Sarah nodded tentatively at that.

"Well you also need to understand that even though I'll stop being your handler when you become a full agent, I can…. and will! become your official mentor, and the mentor program is an established culture within the CIA that even Langston Fucking Graham will have trouble fighting. An agent may only be prevented from contacting their official mentor in situations where they are undercover and any and all communications represent a serious risk to the agent. Leaving an agent under those circumstances for extended periods is _also_ prohibited, so if I don't hear from you for too long, I've got grounds to call for a formal investigation into the matter, and you better believe that if I don't hear from you at least every month or two I _will_ be calling for an investigation!"

"Honey, you're going to turn this agency on its head, and I'm going to be right there, cheering you on, Okay?" This time Sarah's nod was more confident.

"So stop worrying about things that aren't going to happen, and start worrying about how I'm going to kick your arse if you don't ace all your final exams and assignments!" That got the smile she loved to see from Sarah, and they put aside their cares for the rest of the night.

Sarah did ace all of her final exams and assignments of course, graduating summa cum laude on both her Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration degrees and magna cum laude on her language degrees. She and Jane didn't have a chance to celebrate that achievement though, they barely had time to exchange contact details because Graham had her whisked away as soon as she finished her last exam, and she was just handed the envelope that held her formal agent's credentials on the plane on the way to her first mission.

* * *

Sarah went for seven and a half months from the day she finished her exams without any real breaks, just being rushed from one mission to the next with most of her supposed 'down time' being spent in transit to the next mission. That meant that she couldn't make it to Jane's induction as the new Deputy Director of Operations for the CIA in December 2002, but at least with Jane holding down that role, she would be better able to keep track of where Sarah was sent because all field agents were supposed to report through the DDO.

At the start of 2003 though, Sarah was assigned to be part of an all woman team in Paris with the ridiculous name of the CAT Squad. She was pleased to find that at least she had been partnered with Carina Miller, because she and Carina had worked together a number of times and they had clicked straight away both professionally and personally. Carina was the closest thing to a friend she'd had since she was forced into this life, but one of the other women on the team, Zondra Rizzo, quickly became a friend as well.

Their team achieved quite a lot in the two years that they were together, even though the fourth member of their group was a traitor who had been placed there to sabotage them. When Amy was killed in a trap that she'd tried to set up for them (one that they only got out of because Zondra had somehow had the contact details of a private extraction service which proved to be very efficient and effective) though, someone (Sarah's money was on Graham) immediately disbanded the group and they were all sent back to their agencies (the CIA for Sarah, DEA for Carina and FBI for Zondra) without warning. As with Jane, they hardly had time to exchange contact details before they were sent off to their respective agencies.

Sarah's immediate reaction when she was called into Graham's office to meet her new partner after that was 'Oh fuck no!', because she remembered this idiot from a mission she did when she was still at Harvard. As an agent he was mediocre, but as a person he'd never rate that high. She requested a private word with Graham to ask why, with her record, he would partner her with something like this, but he ignored her. So that was how she came to be partnered with Bryce Larkin in 2005.

* * *

The first time Larkin made a move on Sarah, she'd forced herself to stop just short of doing permanent damage to him, but they still had to put a cast on his wrist to help the healing process. He backed off for a while after that, but no matter what she did to try and make it clear to him that she wasn't, and never would be, interested in him…. he refused to believe that she could resist his charms so he kept trying, even if he wasn't interested in her as anything but a conquest.

The next two years were like purgatory for Sarah, not quite hell but not too far off. For a start, she'd had to work harder on all their missions to cover for the failings of her 'partner', whether it was due to just being incapable of doing what was required of him, or him screwing up because he refused to do what he was told or was trying to charm her or some other woman into bed, so she _always_ had to put in the extra effort needed to ensure that their mission succeeded. In the reports that were filed though, _he_ was always the one who was given credit for the success of their missions! She'd torn into Graham more than once about that, and he'd seemed genuinely confused when he said he'd look into it, but she'd never gotten a real answer from him about what was going on.

Then, of course, there were Larkin's continual attempts to get her into bed, no matter how many times that she told him that she wasn't interested, and the way he'd always push their 'public displays of affection' on missions to the limit, and beyond. He'd almost gotten them thrown out of functions where they were running missions more than a few times when he pushed things way past appropriate boundaries, but no matter how much she hurt him for that as soon as they were somewhere she could get away with it, and she'd put him in hospital more than a few times, he was still certain that she was just putting on an act to cover up the fact that she was in love with him (his words), the man was a lunatic.

He'd gone too far this time though, she was going to kill him! They were just about to slip away to go after their mission objective at the consulate when he'd gotten them both thrown out of the consulate and blown the whole mission by putting his hand up her dress and trying to get it into her pants in plain sight of everyone in the fucking ball room! The rest of the team had had to stop her from killing him for what he'd tried to do to her, let alone blowing the mission, when they got outside. She could see on their faces that they wanted to the same to the bastard, but they hustled her straight onto a plane back to the States to prevent an incident in country.

Graham normally wouldn't have taken the way she screamed at him in his office, but he was too stunned by what he saw on that video to react, as he couldn't believe that Larkin could have been stupid enough to do that either…. so he sent her off to Europe on another mission to shoot people until she'd calmed down to prevent her exploding all over Washington and put Larkin on suspension when he was dragged back in disgrace.

* * *

Bryce didn't know what went wrong, one minute he was getting into the groove and everything was going well, and the next they were being thrown out of the Consulate and that crazy bitch was trying to kill him. And their fucking _support_ team disrespecting him that way was just icing on the cake! They'd get theirs, oh yeah they'd get theirs! By the time he got through with the reports he was putting together about _them_ they'd be lucky if Graham just sent them to the North Pole!

He was plotting his revenge all the way back to the States, but the second the door of Graham's office closed behind him, Graham ripped into him. "What the fuck's wrong with you Larkin?"

OK, that was bad, because Graham didn't swear... ever. "What do you mean Sir?"

"Did you, or didn't you, blow the whole fucking mission by sticking your fucking hand up Walker's dress and trying to get into her pants in plain sight of everyone in the fucking Consulate Ballroom so that both of you were thrown out?"

" _No sir!_ "

"You're sure about that?"

" _Yes sir!_ "

"That's funny, because that's _exactly_ what Walker says you did! And then there's _this!_ "

Graham hit a key and abruptly shoved the screen around to display the security video from the Consulate. Walker was obviously telling him to back off when he put his hand up her dress, and in doing so he'd pushed it far enough out of the way for the camera to catch him trying to put his hand in her pants. Luckily, everyone around them had apparently been too aghast with his actions to work out that the knives she had strapped to her upper thigh were anything more than some kind of fancy garter, and she only froze in shock at his actions for a moment before she pulled away from him and got herself covered up. The video went on to show both of them being led from the room immediately after that by guards and officials, her much more politely than he was as they were obviously apologising to her but explaining that she'd have to leave as well, even though she'd done nothing wrong.

When the video was done, Graham said. "I really want to shoot you for fucking up our operation this badly and making all of us look like fools and amateurs Larkin, but I have to concede that no-one deserves the right to do that more than Walker, so you're on suspension until she gets back from Europe. If you try to leave town, you'll be tracked down like a dog and dragged back, or dealt with if you resist!... In fact, I think I'll ask Beckman nicely if she'll loan me her pet pit bull to do it for me, as I understand that Casey has issues with you and is just itching for a chance to put you down! Now get out of my sight! You'll be called to answer for your actions when Walker returns!"

As Bryce started to turn away, Graham barked "Wait! Give me your gun and credentials! You'd really have pull one hell of a rabbit out of your hat to have any chance of ever being an agent again after this Larkin, and frankly I don't see you being up to it!"

When Larkin handed them over sullenly, Graham barked. "Now get out!"

By the time he got to the front door, Graham had remembered something else and called down to the guards, so they took the keys of his SL 55 and his agency credit cards off him so he was lucky he had enough cash in his pocket to get a cab back to his apartment.

* * *

Larkin was two thirds of the way through the bottle of cognac when he remembered the card he had hidden away in a safe place. Fulcrum had pretty much cut him loose when he failed to deliver the Omaha Project to them, but they did say to call them if he ever he had something worthwhile to offer. Some of the admins he'd been screwing to make sure that the mission reports on file credited all their achievements to him had told him about the Intersect Project, which was apparently the next generation of the Omaha Project, and where it was based. He was sure that he'd be able to get enough out of them to get him into the facility, because those pathetic bitches would do anything for him.

Up until now he'd been the rising star of the CIA as Graham's Golden Boy so they had been a better bet, but even he could see that he was dead to them now…. Literally dead if Graham let Walker do what she wanted, so it was definitely time to move on. He was hoping that so long as he gave Fulcrum what they wanted they'd protect from the CIA and Walker…. and Casey too he thought with a shudder, because Graham was right about that! He didn't know why, but that bastard definitely wanted to kill him too!

With that, he got up and dug that card out of its hiding place to call that Bernie character and make a deal. Bernie was _very_ interested when Bryce told him that he could get them the Intersect, and promised that _if_ he could deliver it this time, he'd get everything he'd been promised before, so Bryce got to work.

It took him a few weeks, but he got all the information he needed out of those admins and found out who he needed to pick up to get access to this 'Intersect facility' by cruising the right bars. He also screwed a few of the CIA techs to get the type of hardware he'd need to get the Intersect programs and other files out of the facility and then went hunting. He did love a man in uniform, and he had so much fun with that boy that he almost regretted snapping his neck…. almost, but he had a big pay day ahead of him with this and he wasn't going to take the chance of leaving anyone alive to raise an alarm or identify him later, even if it _had_ been the best sex he'd had in years. Damned CIA, they'd forced him so far into the closet to maintain the expected lady killer image that he hadn't been able to have a really good time since he'd left Stanford…. oh well, that'd all be over soon, he'd have anything and anyone he wanted when this was done.

* * *

Bryce couldn't believe his luck at first, how easily this was going. Mike, the one who's card he'd taken, had apparently had an all access pass and that got him past all the checks, or at least it did until one overzealous guard noted that he wasn't the person on the card. He'd managed to take the dweeb out, but not before he'd taken some damage himself, and the bastard had also set off the alarm, so the job suddenly got a lot more difficult. He managed to get into the room that Mike had told him had direct access to the servers though and jammed the electronic lock to keep them out until he'd gotten what he needed. Looking at the device he was downloading this shit onto, he had to laugh, as he'd gotten that tech Walker talked to set him up with a backup plan in case he couldn't get out of there with the physical device, this was to send the files to Bartowski, and then recover them from him later after he'd eluded pursuit.

This device would compress the files enough to be hidden in one of those stupid zork files that they'd sent to each other when they were pretending to be buddies. He doubted that Bartowski would be able to unlock it, because he'd barely remembered the correct response to the prompt himself, but if he did, well bye bye Bartowski, because that would activate the program and Bernie had said that none of the test subjects for this thing had survived so far. If Bartowski couldn't open it, he'd just go in and beat the shit out of him for the hell of it, then kill him and take the Intersect program to Fulcrum to start his new life.

Maybe he'd take Devon off Bartowski's sister too, just to rub salt in the wound… that had been a surprise, finding out that Devon was with the geek's sister when he was setting things up to finish the job of ruining Bartowski because he'd found out that the geek wasn't suffering as much as he was supposed to…. he'd gotten him kicked out of Stanford just before he could get his degrees, made sure that _everyone_ knew that he'd cheated his way through uni _and_ that he took his girlfriend off him and showed her what a real man was, so the dweeb was _supposed_ to be crying in the gutter, but he wasn't….

Sure, Bartowski was apparently living with his sister and still working for his loser uncle's stupid computer repair business, but he was also supposedly working with a handful of shelf companies with impressive names that he and his geek buddies had obviously set up to try and make themselves sound more important than they were, and he seemed to have taken up with the chink after he took Roberts off of him, so he wasn't suffering anywhere near as much as he was supposed to be!

Seeing that Devon was with a woman had been a surprise, but he was probably just putting on an act to try and stop Mommy and Daddy pulling the plug on him... They must have sent him off to the west coast to stop him embarrassing the family like his own folks had, but Devon had skills in bed so he could get some enjoyment out of him _and_ hurt the geek's sister at the same time by taking him off her... yeah, that sounded like a plan.

Worst case scenario, even if he didn't manage to get out and Bartowski couldn't open the file, the authorities would track it to him and charge him with treason, which was still a good solution in his book! But the plan was to get the intel off him, kill him, break the sister and then go off to lead the sort of life he was meant to.

As soon as the download finished, he stuffed the device into his pocket and started the timer on the bomb that Fulcrum gave him to destroy everything left there, then he started running for the door. The concussion wave from the bomb hit the door a second before he did and blew it out. He was a little dazed from the explosion, but recovered quickly enough to pick himself up and get out of there, taking out any guards he saw along the way.

He'd almost made it, he was in the car park for fuck's sake, when a shot hammered into his chest. He knew he was dying as he was laying there, so he struggled to get the device out of his pocket and send the transmission, hoping that Bartowski _would_ manage to open the file so he could take him with him. He'd just hit 'Send' and saw it start processing when a face appeared over him that made him wonder whether he was already in hell, because it was John Fucking Casey! Then he heard the device go 'phzzzztttttt' as it completed the transmission and fried itself, and he laughed weakly up at Casey "It's too late Casey, it's gone!" before he faded.

Casey looked down at Larkin in regret, because killing the little bastard this way hadn't been anywhere near as satisfying as what he'd been looking forward to. He picked up the device that Larkin had been holding, it looked fried, but hopefully the techs could recover enough from it to at least tell them where the file had been sent to. He was sure that Chuck would be able to recover something from it, but it would have to go through the normal channels first.

* * *

Chuck went up to his room after dinner to get ready to go out, as they'd all come home tonight for his birthday dinner and somehow he'd allowed himself to be talked into going clubbing with Ellie, Rick, Anna, Lou, Lexie, Ljuda, Sam, Robin, Gypsy, Vicky and Skip afterwards, though he couldn't quite work out why doing something he hated would 'have' to be part of _his_ so-called birthday celebrations. He decided to check for emails before he hit the shower, and one of them caught his eye, Bryce Fucking Larkin? What the hell was _Larkin_ doing sending Chuck an email?

He decided he had time so he quickly checked it for malware, especially the attachment, and as nothing came up, he opened the zork file to see what it said, because after all, everyone deserved a chance for redemption didn't they? Even Larkin? He read the prompt and automatically put in the proscribed response, and then images started flashing up on the screen.

Ellie, Rick, Anna, Lou, Lexie, Ljuda, Sam, Robin, Gypsy,, Vicky and Skip were waiting with the girls downstairs for ages after they got ready, but when Ellie started to get up angrily to go and get him, Lottie stopped her, saying that she'd get him before she hurried off to Chuck's room. She tapped on the door, and as she opened it she was saying. "Abba, Dodah Ellie's getting angry, you _said_ that you'd go out with them so you have t…."

When she saw him on the floor, she cried _"Abba!"_ and ran over anxiously to check his vitals, and allowed herself a moment to collapse in relief that they were strong before she jumped up and ran to the door to scream. " _DODAH ELLIE, GET UP HERE! SOMETHING's HAPPENED TO ABBA!_ "

It seemed that Dodah Ellie and Savta Mary were there before she finished, she always forgot how fast they could move when they had to, and Ellie checked him over thoroughly. She couldn't find anything wrong with him, but he wasn't coming to so they decided to take him to El Castillo and use in the equipment in the medical centre to do a full battery of tests on him. It didn't take long for Sam and Rick to get Chuck downstairs and into the car, and ten minutes later they had him in the medical centre in the Dungeon, hooking him up to what appeared to be every medical monitor known to man.

They still couldn't find anything wrong with him, and the only problem he seemed to have when he _did_ come too, hours later, was a splitting headache, which wasn't helped by the way they were all screeching at him about how fucking stupid it had been to open an email from Bryce Fucking Larkin when he told them what he'd done.

They eventually shut up about that and he went upstairs to go to bed, Anna going with him to keep an eye on him through the night. When Mary and Emma went home, they weren't at all surprised when Ellie, Lou and the girls said that they were staying there because they wanted to be nearby, just in case, and Rick stayed to support Ellie. Mary and Emma would have stayed too if they could have done any more than they could, but Ellie was the one he needed for any medical issues and Anna, Lou and the girls would be watching him like hawks so they went home to handle things there and let Di and the others know what had happened.


	6. New Beginnings

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world not a Disney Princess tale.**

When Sarah finished the mission and wound up everything in Sarajevo successfully, Aunt Jane told her that she couldn't put off coming back any longer, because _Director_ Graham was getting quite insistent about her coming back to wind up the Larkin matter. "I have been forbidden to give you any more assignments over there, and ordered to instruct you to return to the States immediately Agent Walker."

Sarah bit her tongue, as Aunt Jane's formal wording said that the call was almost certainly being monitored, but she had caught the only slack in what was being said, as she was specifically being ordered to return to the _States_ , not _Langley_! So she responded accordingly.

"Yes Ma'am, I will return to the States on the first available flight."

With that, they would up the call, then she made two more calls, to Carina and Zondra, hoping that they'd be free so she could find a way to occupy herself away from Langley, Graham and Larkin. Unfortunately El Diablo Rojo was in the middle of a high profile mission in Columbia, and while Il Martello di Dio was in the States, she was in the middle of an important case as well.

Sarah swore at that, and grudgingly conceded that she had to go back. She couldn't really complain, Aunt Jane had managed to allocate her a dozen more in and out solo missions around Europe since the one Graham originally sent her on to let off steam, so she'd been here for over five weeks, but Graham had obviously worked out what they were doing if he gave Aunt Jane a direct order to bring her home.

With that she went to arrange her ticket back to the States, but on the spur of the moment she changed her flight to San Diego, because that was about as far away from Langley as she could be while obeying the order to get back to the States. After all, she hadn't been back since she was taken away after graduation, and she suddenly had an overwhelming urge to see where this had all started again. Surely even Graham could see the irony of that, considering that San Diego was where he trapped her into this world.

The first thing she did in San Diego was pick up a gun because she felt naked without one, then she hired herself a nice Porsche cabriolet for a bit of fun (putting it on the card she'd used for the last mission because she knew that it would attract less attention than one of her emergency cards), and went for a trip down memory lane. It didn't take long for her to work out that this had been a mistake, because where she'd been living as Jenny Burton was somewhere in the middle of a sea of tract homes now, and she really had no interest in bringing up memories of her time at James Buchanan High.

Sarah didn't have too many good memories about San Diego, but it _had_ been the closest thing to a home she'd had since her father took her away when she was seven…. that made her think of the last place that she could remember being truly happy, when she was at Auntie Mary's with Charlie, and she suddenly felt the need to see it again. She decided that driving to San Francisco would help her clear her head, and hopefully help her keep off Graham's radar a bit longer, so she pointed the Porsche at the I-5.

* * *

Halfway to Los Angeles though her phone rang and she answered it on speaker, thinking that it must be Aunt Jane. When she heard Graham's voice she almost hung up, but she wasn't quite angry enough to do something that stupid.

"Walker, where are you?"

"On my way back Sir."

"Are you in America?"

"Yes Sir."

"Thank God for that! I need you to get to Los Angeles as fast as you can. Larkin stole something and sent it to someone there, it _has_ to be retrieved. We don't know exactly who or where it's been sent to yet, but we should have that information by the time you get there. You need to be there by tomorrow at the latest, can you do that?"

Sarah looked up at the mile marker she was currently passing and smiled to herself.

"Yes, I think so sir."

"Good, we'll have the information sent through to you as soon as we have it, the only other thing we have so far is a name, Bartowski."

"Yes sir."

"I'm depending on you Walker!"

"Yes sir."

With that, Graham grunted and cut the call.

Sarah scowled at the phone when he was gone, but consoled herself with the thought that if she was operating over here for a few days, at least she wouldn't have to see him, so there was a silver lining to this.

* * *

By the time she reached Los Angeles, she had a bit more information about the target, apparently his name was Chuck Bartowski (what sort of sadist would call a kid Chuck?) and he owned and operated a small hole in the wall tech business out of a shop in Arcadia. It was only in the last message that they'd provided an actual address, and a note to the effect that Bartowski had apparently been Larkin's room mate and best buddy while they were at Stanford. Funny, while he'd talked about Stanford incessantly (presumably trying to impress her with the fact that he went to _Stanford_ , as she'd never mentioned going to Harvard), Larkin had never mentioned that name? Oh well, she just had to get in, gain this guy's confidence and get whatever Larkin sent him. With any luck he might even give her a reason to shoot him if he was anything like Larkin. _That_ thought made her smile, she knew that there was a reason that the first thing she'd done was to get herself a gun!

She had stopped along the way to put her hair up in a strategically messy bun, do her make up and change into sexy lingerie, translucent blouse, black miniskirt and heels... Creating a look that was a hell of a lot closer to a sexy secretary role play outfit than professional, but _just_ tame enough to be accepted as a legitimate business outfit if someone really wanted to believe it. If this guy was _anything_ like Larkin, it should be enough to have the blood rushing to his little head and make him a little more malleable when she engaged him... and to be honest, she'd intentionally gone with that look in an effort to entice him into crossing the line to give her an excuse to shoot him... once she'd gotten what she needed out of him of course.

Sarah frowned to herself when she found the building Bartowski's business was in though, because this was one hell of a lot bigger and more upmarket than she'd been expecting from the information she'd been sent... She pulled into the car park across the road and checked the address she'd been sent again. Yep, Shop 5, Le Roy and Lovell Arcadia, this was definitely the address... Shit!

Oh well, there was no point in checking with those analysts again because she'd had to hound them to get as much as she had out of them, so she knew that she already had everything they'd managed to scrape together... She did think about calling Pete Tong to see if he could get her better information on this guy because Pete was far smarter and more resourceful than those analysts but shook her head, she wasn't supposed to be operating on US soil anyway so getting it over and done with as quickly as possible was the best approach, with that she quickly ran though a few scenarios in her head, undid another button on her blouse and headed for the building.

It didn't take her too long to find the right door, though locating doors on a building this size that was completely covered with mirror glass and had no more than small signs painted on the glass next to the doors had been an interesting exercise. She was uncomfortable about the fact that she was going into what was obviously a secure building without any idea of what was inside, but mentally shrugged, thinking 'worst comes to worst, they die or I do', and pressed the button on the intercom beside the professionally lettered sign for Piranha Security & Technology. There was a sign on the other side of the double doors that said Lotus Systems, so she wasn't surprised to see two businesses in there, but the tasteful signs on the glass walls inside made it easy to pick which was Bartowski's.

The Piranha Security & Technology office was expansive, and tastefully decorated in a style that declared that this was a successful professional's business, so when she saw the young Asian woman who'd buzzed her into the building and then the office (through two doors that she could tell would require serious hardware to breach), Sarah presumed that she must be this Bartowski's girlfriend because she wasn't dressed for business, not unless she was a waitress in a strip club anyway.

Sarah quickly plastered a suitably ditzy smile on her face and said breathlessly. "Hi! I'm Sarah, Sarah Walker, my bosses have a _really_ big problem and they were told you were the only people who can help them. I was told to ask for Mister Bartowski?"

The initial flash of appreciation that crossed over the woman's face when she saw her had quickly changed to confusion, as if she were trying to remember something, but she frowned and looked suspicious at the 'Mister Bartowski', and she was keeping an eye on her as she called out "Chuck, there's a…. lady here to see you!", so Sarah had obviously said something wrong there.

A very tall man with good shoulders and a mop of curly brown hair who moved well wandered out of one of the offices at that in jeans, chucks and a button down shirt with his head down, engrossed in reading something on the computer tablet in his hand as he walked, but he was saying good naturedly. "Anna, I put those intercoms in for a reason, how am I supposed to maintain a professional image with you shouting across the office like that?" It was more of a jibe than a reprimand, because from his manner and casual dress, he obviously wasn't too fussed about his 'professional image'.

When he finished reading whatever it was he was so interested in, he looked up with a pleasant smile on his face and Sarah froze. She knew that smile, she knew those eyes. " _Charlie?_ "

He froze at that too, dropping the tablet in his hand. " _Sammie?_ "

Anna (presumably) whipped around to stare at Sarah with realisation blooming on her face. " _That's_ it! You're Auntie Em's daughter!"

* * *

None of them said anything for a while, she and Charlie just stood there staring at each other, aside from Sarah glancing at this other woman, trying to work out how she could know who her mother was.

Then Charlie snapped. "Anna, call home!"

At that the woman nodded and ran into the office that was presumably Charlie's.

Now that he'd found his voice, Charlie asked "Where have you been Sammie? We've been looking for you but could never find you."

Sarah shook her head. "I was on the road with Dad until I was fifteen, then he got arrested just before I finished high school and I was made an offer I couldn't refuse…."

"By the CIA!"

"How do you know about that?"

"We found the reports about Jack Burton's arrest in San Diego a couple of months later because they'd been suppressed, just after you graduated from high school and disappeared. The way that everything had been scrubbed screamed the CIA but we couldn't find any references to any of the names we knew of for you in their systems either, and Uncle Joe didn't know anything about what happened to you when we sent someone in to ask about you..." his anger as he muttered "or care!" was obvious.

Sarah shook her head, but firmed her shoulders. "Yes Charlie, I've been in the CIA for the past nine years, and that's why I'm here, you're Chuck Bartowski now I take it?"

Chuck nodded

"Did you get anything from Bryce Larkin recently?"

"Yeah, I got an email from him…."

Sarah cut him off. "I need that email Charlie, it's government property."

Chuck shook his head "It's gone, I opened it to see what Larkin had sent me, because I thought that it may be some form of apology, but it destroyed itself when I opened it."

"What do you mean destroyed itself, and what was he apologising for?"

"It fried the computer, or it would have if it had been a physical computer, and no trace of the email was left afterwards. And he wasn't apologising, at least I didn't see any trace of an apology, but as for why, that'd be the fact that as far as he knew he got me thrown out of Stanford just before graduation by framing me for cheating, then screwed my girlfriend and made sure everyone knew about both."

That certainly sounded like Larkin. "He slept with your girlfriend?"

"No, I said as far as he knew he did, she wasn't actually my girlfriend."

Sarah started to say "What….?" but Anna had come back out of the office by then and snapped. "She was _my_ girlfriend. When we got to Stanford, there were a lot of anti-homo attacks and rapes going on and all the jocks immediately started sniffing after Jill, so Chuck agreed to pretend to be her boyfriend to try to protect her, protect us, from all of that shit."

She glanced at Chuck and went on in a softer tone. "He hasn't had a real girlfriend since we met in middle school."

Sarah looked at her, recalling one of Larkin's stories. "Jill Roberts?"

"Yeah, how did you know that?"

"He told me a lot of stories about Stanford in the two years we were together…." She saw Chuck freeze out of the corner of her eye and turned to him earnestly. "No! We were partners Charlie, that's all!"

When he relaxed she continued. "Anyway, he boasted about banging her to round out his list of the five hottest babes at Stanford after her loser boyfriend got kicked out for cheating..."

She glanced at the woman. "Sorry."

Chuck growled. "Yeah, he was pissed off when he found out that the sex tape he made with her was too corrupted to show anything!"

* * *

Just then Sarah heard running from further back in the offices and she grabbed her pistol from the back of the waistband of her skirt as she backed up to the wall, trying to cover the two of them and the direction the noise was coming from. When the two women burst into the office though, she let her hand fall to her side as she gasped. "Mama?"

Emma ran to her and she dropped the pistol as she ran to embrace her. Neither of them could speak for a while, but when she could, Sarah asked. "Mama, how are you here? Graham has been telling me for over nine years that he had you locked away somewhere!"

Emma shook her head with tears in her eyes. "No Honey, Graham never had me. I was off looking for you for a while after your father took you away, then your Auntie Di told me that Uncle Stefan had done something stupid…. because Auntie Mary had been sent to Russia just after I left to look for you and she was trapped there for over a year... So I came back and Chuck, Ellie and I started a new life together down here, because we've all had problems."

Sarah hadn't noticed how Mary and Chuck had frozen when she said 'Graham' (Emma hadn't registered that either, she was too excited that she had her baby back), but Sarah certainly noted the tone when Mary said "Graham, _Langston_ Graham? You work for _him_?" because she registered the anger in her voice as a threat and pushed her mother behind her.

Chuck took note of Sarah's new stance and from that recognised that she was a seriously dangerous woman now, and he suddenly put two and two together. "Oh no! _You're_ Graham's Enforcer?"

Sarah whipped her head around to look at him. "How do you know that name Charlie?"

Her distraction gave Emma the opportunity she needed to break free of her grip and step out from behind her. "Because he's been hacking into the CIA's systems, and just about everyone else's, for over seventeen years now, trying to find you!"

Sarah stared at her mother, and then back at Chuck, just as he made another connection. "If you're Graham's Enforcer, then _Larkin_ must be his Golden Boy!"

"Not any more he isn't! John killed him last night!"

They looked up at that to see Di on the screen, but they had no idea how long she'd been linked in.

* * *

"Would you like to tell me why you would do something so stupid as to open anything you got from Bryce Fucking _Larkin_ , and why your mother was the one who had to tell me me about it Chuck?"

"I wasn't thinking, _alright_? I was pissed off because Skip, Rick and the girls were making me go out clubbing again and opened it thinking that he may have been reaching out to apologise for all that shit at Stanford, because everyone deserves a chance to do the right thing…."

He was cut off my Sarah's snort and turned a 'not you too?' look on her. She met his eye without backing down and said. "Charlie, Bryce Larkin wouldn't recognise the right thing if you slapped him in the face with it, and if you _could_ make him see it, he'd make sure he did the exact opposite!"

The others laughed when Anna said "Yep, she knows the Douche alright!", but Chuck didn't.

As she thought that this could send Chuck down one of his famous rabbit holes, Di tried to bring things back to what happened the night before. "I'm sorry Chuck, John had no idea that it was your name in the device that Larkin used to transmit the Intersect files, and he handed it in as per the required protocols to see what the techs could get out of it. The only techs on hand were CIA people, and Graham didn't see fit to share the information with me until about twenty minutes ago, obviously trying to make sure that his people got there first. I've been tied up with chasing John down and getting things organised to get him headed out there ASAP since then, sorry. By the way Sammie, how _did_ you get there so quickly? Graham assured me that they only got the first details out of that device a few hours ago?"

"I was driving up from San Diego because I was heading up to San Francisco to see Auntie Mary's house when he called me, he did say that all they had at that time was the name Bartowski and that it was in Los Angeles though, so he may have actually been telling you the truth about that."

Di nodded "It's a relief that he's apparently being that honest at least. Anyway, John is taking off from Ronald Reagan in the J Thirty as we speak to try to get there in time to head off Graham's infamous Enforcer, Sarah Walker. I can't tell you how relieved I am to find out who that really is Sammie."

"Auntie Di, why are you wearing a uniform and dealing with Graham? Who are you actually?" (Only then did Diane realise that Sammie was flying blind because she was sitting at her desk in her uniform blouse with no identification.)

"Oh I'm sorry Honey, I forgot that you never knew me as anything but Auntie Di. I'm Major General Diane Beckman, United States Air Force, the NSA's co-Director of the Intersect project and Commander of the Special Projects and Tactical Research group... normally known as the Spectre Group"

She paused. "I'm so sorry Emma, I never thought it would take us this long to locate her."

Chuck interjected with "Well, strictly speaking, we _didn't_ Auntie Di, she located us!", but Emma smiled wanly as she put her arm around her daughter.

At that point, Mary said. "Why don't we take this discussion downstairs, where we can be more comfortable? I think we could all do with a drink."

They all nodded and Chuck said he'd see them down there in a few minutes after he'd finished a few things off.

* * *

As soon as Sarah stepped out of the lift, Ellie barrelled up to hug her, as she'd always regarded her as her little sister and had missed her as much as anyone except for Chuck or Auntie Em. She'd been down in the medical centre, going over Chuck's test results again and trying to work out how to get him to submit to more tests, so when Mom messaged her to say that Sammie was here and they were heading for B1 she dropped everything and raced up the stairs.

After she'd greeted Ellie, Sarah looked around and asked. "Where's Uncle Stefan Nora?"

They all went quiet for a moment and then Ellie said. "He's in Nevada with his therapist Sammie, he tried something stupid and experimental on himself a few months after you were taken away, and they've been trying to fix him ever since."

Sarah glanced at Anna and lowered her voice. "What about her girlfriend Jill Roberts? I could tell that there was something off from the way they were talking about her. And why did she get so suspicious when I asked for Mister Bartowski?"

"Well for a start, Chuck's work is all by referrals, so very few people come to the office... And anyone referred to him is referred to _Chuck_ , not Mister Bartowski, because the name on his degrees isn't Bartowski, so as soon as you said that Anna knew you were lying."

Then she glanced at Anna as well and said. "And as for Jill... well she made a mistake in the situation she was put in just before they finished at Stanford and disappeared after they graduated."

She hesitated and then went on quietly. "Sammie, no matter what it may look like with Anna, she and Chuck are friends, best friends, but nothing more than that. Chuck pretended to be Anna's boyfriend all through their teenage years to cover for her and Jill. Yes, they've shared bedrooms, bathrooms and beds hundreds of times over the last seventeen years but they've never been together that way, they're just a rather unusual twist on the traditional idea of best friends…. And there's something else I need to tell you about Anna's current partner but…."

Sarah looked at her. "Why are you telling me this Nora?"

"Because I don't know about you, but there's never been anyone but you for him! He's looked for you every day since Uncle Joe took you away! If that isn't one sided, I don't want to risk letting something that has never effected what he feels for you interfere with it."

Sarah glanced at Anna again. "She tried to tell me something similar upstairs when she explained why he was pretending to be Roberts' boyfriend at Stanford."

Ellie looked at her "Well?"

"Well what?"

" _Is_ it one sided?"

Sarah blushed as she tried to think of how to answer that. "No. There's never been anyone else for me either, but what I've had to do for this job Nora, I don't know how we could ever get past that…."

"Sammie, with what we've been through, we've all done lots of things that we don't think we can be forgiven for, Chuck more than anyone. When the time comes, just talk about it…. Damn it, I have to tell you before they get here!"

"Look... when we first came down here and started school at Arcadia in Ninety, Chuck became close friends with the resident nerds in Middle School, Anna, Lou and Skip. They thought Chuck was the same age as them because they added a couple of years to both our ages to help hide us… Anyway, when Lou and Anna started coming into their teens their hormones started kicking in and…. Well they wanted to experiment with sex... just as friends because they knew that Chuck's heart was already taken by _YOU_ , the girl he looked for every day! and Chuck agreed because he cared for them, cares for them, a lot and would do anything for them. While they both said that it was really, really nice though, being with Chuck just didn't click for them, but they experimented with each other as well, and that's when they found what really worked for them."

"Then a few months later, Lou and her family suddenly disappeared without a word to anyone, and we found out later that they'd emigrated to Israel. Anna and Chuck were really upset about that, and both of them thought it was because of what they had done with Lou… Then about a year later Jill joined their little group and she and Anna hooked up. Chuck pretended to be Anna's boyfriend and Skip, who's gay too by the way, pretended to be Jill's boyfriend right though high school to keep everyone else from finding out that Anna, Jill and Skip were gay. When Chuck, Anna and Jill got to Stanford though, that changed…"

Sarah nodded. "Anna told me about that."

Ellie nodded. "Skip went to UCLA, where I was, so Chuck was stuck with Larkin as his room mate up there, and the girls had fun stirring him about having a gay room mate even without Skip..."

Sarah cut her off. "What do you mean, gay? Do you know how many times that bastard tried to get into my pants? And how many other women he screwed?"

Ellie nodded again. "I can guess, Skip hooked up with his ex boyfriend Jethro when he stopped me taking the idiot apart because he was coming onto me and wouldn't take no for an answer, and I know for fact that Jethro screwed half the girls in our class to try and cover up the fact that _he_ was gay. But as far as Larkin goes, we think he was actually advised to play the ladies man by his CIA recruiter in their second year there to cover up what he was…."

"Anyway, there was an incident on their first night at Stanford when Chuck was staying in Anna and Jill's room with them because they were frightened about all the stories of girls getting raped in their dorms and a group of thugs from the University's football team _did_ break into their room to rape them. Chuck put them all in hospital and the Campus Police tried to arrest him and charge him with all sorts of things including attempted murder so he ended up getting a settlement for about three and a half million out of the university for wrongful arrest and falsified charges. He officially used that to buy a nice house just off campus for them to live in, but the terms of the settlement were that _everything_ about the incident had to remain a secret so Chuck had to officially stay in the allocated housing. That interfered with his work too much so he had to give in to Larkin blackmailing him to cover up the fact that he was supposedly off sleeping with his 'good Christian girlfriend' all the time..."

"Then just before they finished at Stanford the CIA recruiter tested them for compatibility with an earlier version of the Intersect program that Larkin sent to Chuck last night, and Chuck got an almost perfect score. That was why Larkin and the recruiter framed Chuck for cheating, because they sent Chuck's results off with Larkin's name on them so that Larkin could take his place. That's when we found out that the money for Jill to go to Stanford had come from an organisation called Fulcrum, because they had been told that Larkin was the candidate for Project Omaha, and they called in their marker, making her dump her 'boyfriend' Chuck and seduce Larkin to get him to come across to them. When we were discussing how to deal with Jill's problem, Uncle Roan and Anna let the cat out of the bag about what Chuck had done for Anna and Lou and talked him into doing the same for Jill so that she'd be prepared for what she was going to have to do with Larkin…. There was also another lesbian friend who asked him, or _us_ really, to help her confirm her orientation, a few other girls he agreed to give a gentle first time to and other girls who Chuck helped get over what had been done to them by other men."

She stopped and looked at Sarah. "But the _only_ women Chuck has had sex with were friends who had a good reason to ask, or more often beg him to, and he _always_ made sure that they understood that he wasn't able to be anything more than a friend to them, and he wasn't available for casual sex either because someone else already had his heart, _you!_ "

"Anyway, while they were staging some fights to convince Larkin that Jill was breaking up with Chuck, Chuck got expelled for cheating and once he'd collected enough evidence to clear himself he came home… But Auntie Di had taken note of what Uncle Roan and Anna said about the girls experimenting with Chuck and got suspicious, well you know how suspicious your Aunt is! So she had some friends in Israel check up on Lou and found out that she'd had twin baby girls about six months after the family moved to Israel. Her father had been secretly planning to move the family to Israel for a while and it was all organised, but the reason they left suddenly the way they did was that her father found out that his thirteen year old daughter was pregnant…. So what I'm trying to say is that when they get home you're going to meet Chuck's twin daughters, but he is _NOT_ with their mother that way and never was! Lou and Anna are a couple and they're Chuck's best friends, but that's all they've ever been to him, _YOU_ have always been the only girl for Chuck and Anna and Lou always knew and accepted that!"

Sarah was staring at her, trying to make sense of all this, but when she heard the lift start up to the ground floor Ellie realised that there was one more piece of information that she had to tell her, no two, no three! Shit! "Okay, there are a few more things you need to know before they get here. First, we discovered about fifteen years ago that Uncle Bry got a girl pregnant just before he was sent back to Vietnam in Seventy Two, Robin was born in November Seventy Two, and he married just after you were taken away and had another daughter, Kimberley, Kim... but his wife was a total bitch who was sleeping around and divorced him while he was off on assignment, then got remarried straight away to the sleaze she cheated on Uncle Bry with when Kim was twelve. Second, Aunty Em and Uncle Bry finally admitted that they loved each other and got married three years ago to give Kim a good home, so Uncle Bry is your stepfather and Robin and Kim are your stepsisters. And Third, Mom was raped by the one she was sent to extract from Russia in Ninety so Chuck and I have a half sister, Vivien, who you may also be about to meet unless she's been held up at the uni."

That broke Sarah out of her stunned state as she shrieked. _"What?"_

Everyone else turned around when she shrieked and Emma glanced at the lift. "How much did you tell her Ellie?"

"Just who's in the family now, and why."

Emma shook her head at her but took Sarah's hands. "Breathe Honey! The most important parts to remember of what Ellie told you are that Chuck loves you, he always has and you're the only one for him. His daughters are lovely girls and I'm sure you'll love them as much as they love you. They've been waiting to meet you, so have your stepsisters and Chuck's sister because there isn't a day that Chuck and the rest of us don't mention you. And Uncle Bry and I love each other and he makes me very happy, okay?"

Sarah nodded numbly and Emma put her arms around her.

Just then the lift doors opened and Lou stepped out with Lottie, Charlie and Kim, stopping as they took in the scene in front of them.

Lou realised who the beautiful woman in Auntie Em's arms must be straight away and she turned to Chuck to excitedly exclaim " _You've found her?_ " before she charged over to hug Emma and Sarah.

While she was reeling from the bombshells she'd just been hit with, Sarah Walker never missed anything, and that immediate reaction of joyous excitement from the mother of Chuck's children that she was back was the very thing she needed to accept the truth of everything Nora and Mama had just told her. An immediate reaction like that couldn't be faked, and to have this woman who she'd never met before be that excited about her being there proved what Mama had said, she was being talked about enough for them to know what she meant to Charlie and Mama.

* * *

She was introduced to Chuck's daughters and her new stepsister Kim, Lou, a now grown up Lexie who'd only been four when she was taken away, Skip, Jeff, Rick, Rocky, Zoe, her other stepsister Robin, Sam, Gypsy, Vicky... and when they got home from university her cousin Josie, Chuck's new sister Viv, Auntie Charly's daughter Katy, Rocky and Zoe's son Benjie and Lou's mother Rebecca. For the next four hours or so after that, they just talked, only taking breaks for Sarah to bring the rental Porsche inside and the like. There were tears aplenty, some laughter too, but after they got into the grittier subjects the opportunities for laughter were few and far between.

Finding out that Chuck was both the Chameleon, the agent many thought was nothing but a legend because he was a totally different person each time he appeared, and people weren't even sure whether the Chameleon was a he or a she because there were almost as many stories about him appearing as woman... _and_ Mowgli, John Casey was Baloo, Auntie Mary was Frost _and_ Akela, Ellie was Raksha, Uncle Bry was Bagheera and Uncle Roan was Mysa was a shock, to say the least, but it made a lot of things she'd been told in training and on missions make sense.

Chuck was nervous when Anna and Lou told Sarah about what he'd agreed do for them, Jill and others, just as Sarah was nervous when she was telling them about what she did for a similar reason, and the times when she was trapped and couldn't get out of it in training and on those first solo missions.

The more they talked though, the more Sarah understood what Ellie had been saying, none of them were innocent any more, they'd all been forced to do things they didn't want to, to protect themselves, the ones they loved, and others who couldn't protect themselves.

* * *

The talk of the paramilitary operations raised the question of where their base for that was, and the others made Chuck take Sarah downstairs to show her the operations centre, armoury and everything else. Sarah walked around the armoury, having trouble believing what was in there as she'd never seen anything like this, the SAD teams she'd worked with didn't have a fraction of what was here. Her eyes also lit up when she saw that incredible high tech urban combat range and the dojo, pool and the rest, oh yeah, she would be having fun down here.

As they started to head upstairs again, Sarah suddenly stopped and turned to Chuck, and finding that they were pretty much face to face when she was standing one step up she leaned forward to whisper huskily in his ear. "As soon as we have a chance we're talking about me getting rid of that piece of crap pistol I picked up in San Diego and upgrading me to something better from your collection... okay?"

She laughed at the shiver that went through him when she whispered in his ear like that and threw her arms around his neck as it just felt so natural. His arms had gone around her waist the same way, and they stood there, looking into each other's eyes. For all how comfortable they felt like this, the laughter was gone and she said quite seriously. "I missed you Charlie, they've all been telling me how much you were looking for me, and I need you to know that I thought about you all the time too. I never want to lose you again, any of you, but especially you and Mama."

Chuck smiled and nodded and Sarah went to give him a quick kiss, much like the ones they'd always shared before they were split up as kids, but it didn't feel quite the same now. That quick kiss became a much longer one, and afterwards as they stood there, holding each other and breathing heavily, Sarah mischievously asked. "So, do I kiss as well as all your other girlfriends?" Chuck groaned and tried to pull away but there was no way she was letting go, so he looked her in the eye. "You aren't bad, you're better than you were when you were seven at least. I'll admit that I've had to put on more enthusiastic shows with other women more than a few times over the years, but I'd much rather kiss you."

She swatted him on the shoulder. "I suppose you are a bit better kisser now than you were when you were eight too."

As they stood there, he rubbed her back and breathed in her ear. "I'm _so_ glad you're back!" She just nodded and tightened her grip.

* * *

They got a call from Casey to say that he was at El Monte soon after that, so they asked him to pick up food for thirty or so and more alcohol for a celebration along the way. As Casey walked in, he was asking what they were celebrating, but froze when he saw Sarah. It didn't take a genius like her to work out that they must have crossed paths professionally, so Emma jumped in to forestall something being said that would be hard to take back. "John, I'd like you to meet my long lost daughter, Samara Liisa Burdon, but I believe that you may know her as Sarah Walker?"

That made him whip his head around to look at her and excitedly ask. " _She's_ your Sammie? You've found her?"

Emma nodded happily, and Sarah found that she was happy about the excited way he'd put that. As the CIA's top agent, she'd locked horns with 'Beckman's Pet Pit Bull' as Graham and many in the CIA called him more than a few times over the years, so finding him as pretty much part of the family and actually sounding happy that her mother had found her, that was certainly a surprise.

While they were setting things out, they went over the fact that Auntie Di hadn't been able to fill him in on the fact that Sarah was there or who she was after he'd taken off, because they couldn't guarantee secure communications over the military channels she had to use to talk to the plane. Sarah filled them in on the background that she had to get there 'by tomorrow' so she could turn up in the morning as no-one would expect her to be able to engage the target at night. John was theoretically getting there in the morning too, so he could officially report that he observed Sarah engaging the target and ask the General what to do about her.

The fact that they couldn't recover what Larkin had sent Chuck was a problem. Chuck had backtracked it all the way to DC, but there wasn't a working copy left anywhere, all other copies had either been forced to delete themselves when the trigger came back up the line, or they'd somehow been opened, which had triggered the same type of damage as what happened to the virtual computer that Chuck had used to open it. They all knew what this meant, if Chuck had seen the images and was still functioning, he was the only viable way for them to access the Intersect database, so Graham would stop at nothing to grab him and use him as a resource.

John asked whether they could claim that Chuck couldn't access the Intersect information to get Graham off their backs, but Chuck, Sarah, Ellie and Emma shook their heads (pretty much in unison, which amused the others) and Ellie said. "No, they'd just grab him and put him through whatever procedures it took to get to the information, even if it killed him."

Then Chuck spoke. "No, we need to find some way to prove that I can be more use to them out in the real world, that's the only way that I'm likely to avoid a bunker, and if you" (looking at the screen) "try to put me in a bunker, there's going to be a war."

Diane didn't bother answering that, as they all knew that he was referring to the establishment with that 'you', and which side she'd be on if it came to that. All she said was. "I think you should have more of our friends there in case something happens."

The others nodded at that, but when Sarah went to ask what they were talking about, Chuck glanced at Viv and squeezed her hand to stop her.

* * *

Then he said. "I can think better when I'm doing something, I'll go get Sammie set up in the guest bedroom in my apartment and we can pick it up when we come back." The others nodded and he took her by the hand to lead her off to the elevator. She got the hint and didn't try to talk about this until he brought it up in his apartment. When he went to put her things in the guest bedroom though she raised an eyebrow. "You were serious about that?"

He looked at her. "I didn't want to presume anything Sammie, I didn't think we were at that stage yet?"

"I'm not saying that I'm going to have sex with you Charlie, but as both Ellie and Anna have made a point of telling me, you've shared beds with women hundreds of times without doing anything... We've been apart for nearly eighteen years, so I'd really like us to be able to spend the night holding each other and maybe talking?"

His smile at that lit up the room and he nodded, taking her bags to his room. Once he'd put the bags down, he sat on the bed and patted the spot beside him. Once she'd sat down and taken his hand he started. "OK, about our friends... I presume that you were told how Viv was conceived?"

Sarah nodded.

"When Auntie Em went off to look for you, Graham made some threats about what would happen to Ellie and me if Mom didn't get her back and Mom countered with some threats of her own, which amounted to the fact that she'd bring his whole world down around his ears if he ever laid a finger of either of us. Graham needed Dad to get his project finished, but her threats made him decide that Mom was too dangerous to have around, so he somehow forced Uncle Hartley to load a predecessor of the Intersect program called Agent X that overwrote his personality and memories and turned him into Alexei Volkoff…."

"Graham _created_ Alexei Volkoff?"

"Yes... anyway... he somehow convinced Mom and Dad that the people who sent Uncle Hartley to Russia weren't going to extract him, and 'let slip' where the supposed extraction device for the Agent X program was, so Mom grabbed the device and went to Russia to deactivate the program and get Uncle Hartley back... but that had been a lie, there's no way to extract that program, and he'd had Volkoff fed the information that Mom was a CIA assassin coming to get him. Volkoff raped and tortured Mom, but she finally managed to get him to confirm her identity as a KGB sleeper, Marjan Zaleska, with the First Directorate so he didn't have her killed…."

Sarah cut in again. "Wait...Auntie Mary was a KGB _sleeper_?"

"Yeah, she was sent over here when she was sixteen but she unofficially defected after she fell in love with Dad. Anyway, Volkoff found out she was pregnant so he stopped her terminating the pregnancy and made her have the baby. Viv was taken away at birth, Mom thought on Volkoff's orders but the fact that her foster mother was tortured to death without giving her up about ten years later makes us wonder. Mom got help to get out and comeback to us about six months after Viv was born, but when Graham told Dad that Mom had been killed, he refused to believe that she was dead, but he went a little crazy and tried something desperate which was frying his brain so everything was falling apart... We'd already had the incidents where Auntie Sue was burned in the Seventies, Uncle Buck and Auntie Phoebe were burned in the Mid Eighties and Auntie Charly was burned in early Eighty Eight and it was almost a year before we found by chance after she washed up on the shore, pregnant and with amnesia. Then Uncle Bry ended up in Kim's mother's clutches because we didn't have anyone in a position to help him when the CIA just dumped him back here to recover after he was shot up in East Germany in late Eighty Nine, so Mom, Auntie Di, Uncle Bry and all the rest of their friends got together and decided that they needed to set things up so that they'd have the resources to find you and Auntie Em, when Auntie Em disappeared to try and find you, and get Mom out of Russia and Dad, Ellie and me away from the CIA when Mom disappeared a couple of weeks later, basically to look after everyone in the family who needed it..."

"They got started on that in December Eighty Nine, which was lucky because they were ready to move when Dad called Auntie Di to ask her to look after us because he'd tried to load an early version of the Intersect and it was frying his brain. Auntie Sue got Ellie and me out before Graham could get his hands on us and they tracked Auntie Em down to came back and look after us. Auntie Di got us, Auntie Em, Auntie Sue and Lexie relocated down here to Arcadia with Uncle Buck, and that's when we started working in the Spectre group under her. Josie was born down here and she's been mainly raised by Auntie Em and Auntie Sue because Auntie Di wanted to hide her from the Beckman family, intelligence community and anyone else who'd use her daughter to get back at her and she wanted her to have a good and loving upbringing. Auntie Em mainly raised Katy too because Auntie Charly has been running around the world managing our operations most of the time and she wanted her to grow up in a stable, safe, loving environment... Benjie was too up until Zoe transferred out of the Army and joined us in Ninety Four. As I said, it took months but after Viv was born Mom managed to get Volkoff's elite Spetsnaz trained guards and enforcers who respected and admired her and weren't happy about how Volkoff had treated her to help her get away, so she got back to us about four or five months later. Those guys are still helping us and over a thousand of them have defected to us since then, most of them changed sides in two operations where we hit back at Volkoff but some came with Mom when she got out and others just couldn't put up with what Volkoff was doing any more. Bai was burned by the FBI and started a new life back with us in Ninety Two. There are also quite a few more ex-KGB agents and Spetsnazovtsi who Mom talked into coming over to us after the Soviet Union fell and they were abandoned in bad situations, and even more American and other agents and special ops operatives who we took in and hid when they were burned or set up, that's who Auntie Di was talking about as our friends. The reason we didn't want to talk about this downstairs though is that we want to spare Viv being reminded of what the monster who's taken over her father's body did. She's tough, well she's Mom's daughter, but she's still only sixteen and she doesn't need to have her nose rubbed in things that she's in no way to blame for."

"Charlie, what happened with Jill, I can see that there's something wrong there and Ellie didn't tell me anything more than that she disappeared."

"A bit after we graduated…. Yeah, I graduated... I went back with John as an FBI agent, Uncle Roan as our lawyer and all the evidence to prove that I'd been framed and we convinced them to let me finish quietly and graduate with all my entitlements under a different name after I did my exams, with a Twenty Four Million Dollar settlement to keep quiet. Anyway, after we'd all moved back here, Jill started shutting us out and then she suddenly disappeared. About a month later Anna got a letter from her to explain. She hadn't told us the truth about getting get Larkin to use a condom every time they had sex because she'd gotten into it. She didn't catch AIDS off him, well not that we know of anyway, but she _did_ get pregnant, so she decided to go off and have the baby and start a new life away from everyone she'd known. We've been looking for her, even though she asked us not to, so we can make sure she's okay, but we haven't found any trace of her. But Jill's been less of a sensitive subject since Lou came back because Lou was Anna's first love, and it wasn't her choice to leave while it _was_ Jill's.…."

She came in for another kiss, and they held each other for a while, but finally Chuck reluctantly pointed out that they should go back down so they could try to get a plan together.

* * *

When they came out of the lift, Ellie, Anna and Lou looked at each other in obvious surprise.

Unfortunately for them, Sarah read that look quite easily. "No, we weren't having sex! What sort of girl do you think I am?"

Even Emma burst out laughing when Ellie answered. "Obviously one with a lot more self control than me! You two have been pining over each other for eighteen years, we expected you to be going at it like rabbits to get rid of all that unresolved tension!"

Both Chuck and Sarah were blushing madly, and the only one who actually looked sympathetic was John because all the women were laughing so hard they had tears streaming down their faces. Chuck just took Sarah by the hand and led her downstairs. While the women were still laughing, John brought the shooting range feeds up on the big screen and grabbed himself another drink, sitting back to watch the show he knew was about to start. For the last seven years especially since he had a world class range built here in the dungeon, and to a lesser degree the previous nine or ten years as well, this had been Chuck's best way to let off steam without exposing who and what he really was, and when he was this wound up, his performance was always impressive. Chuck and Walker alternated and John's surprise grew for the next half hour, because Walker's scores were almost as good as Chuck's, and he never thought that he'd see _two_ people capable of beating him this badly on the range... For that matter he had a sneaking suspicion that Walker could thrash him in other arenas too, just like Chuck could.

As they wound up and went to put their weapons away, John looked up at the screen where the General's now sober image was and they just nodded to each other... Yes, they _had_ to find a way to manoeuvre Graham into going along with what Chuck had planned, because they needed that pair together! Individually they were incredible, but together they would be unstoppable!

When they came back up, still hand in hand everyone noted, Di asked. "So... Have you come up with a plan yet Chuck?"

"Not a plan as such, but an idea maybe, I'm going try to relax tonight…."

At the hint of a comment from Ellie and the others, he turned his head towards them and snapped "Shut up!" before turning back to the screen.

"Then in the morning I'll probably come down here to set up multiple news feeds and stream them concurrently to get the most hits I can, then we'll go over what came up to try and find one, or more, which are big enough to use to build a good enough case to leave me out here in the world where I can be of more value."

The others were nodding, agreeing that this would be the best way forward, so they said they'd re-convene in the morning and packed it in for the night.

 **A/N: According to GT. Zondra's nickname 'Il Martello di Dio' means 'The Hammer of God' in Italian and Carina's tag of 'El Diablo Rojo' is 'The Red Devil' in Spanish, they became well known as these names while they were kicking arse in the CATS.**


	7. Prestidgitation

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale.**

As Sarah had said, they talked and held each other through the night, though there was quite a bit of kissing involved, too. While it was tame compared to what the others expected them to be doing, it was a wonderful night for them. The real surprise, for Sarah at least, came early the next morning though.

She was wide awake the moment the twins walked into the bedroom in exercise gear saying "Time to get up Abba…" but they stopped short when they saw Sarah, Lottie blurted out "Oh I'm so sorry! We forgot….." and they turned to run out but Sarah quickly called out to them. "Wait…. Come back girls!"

They stopped and looked back in confusion, to see her holding her hand out with a smile, so they hesitantly turned around and came back in.

After a round of hugs and kisses, Sarah asked. "So I take it this is your normal morning routine?"

Charlie nodded. "Yes, we're sorry, like Lottie said we just forgot... You see we always come in to get Abba for our morning run with Dodah Ellie, Viv, Katy, Lexie and Benjie then come back and have a training session with Savta Mary and have breakfast while we're waiting for Eema and Dodah Anna and everyone else to get up."

Sarah groaned as she suddenly realised... "Oh no, there are three more of you now?"

The girls looked at their father in confusion and he smiled as he stage whispered. "Dodah Sarah needs lots of sleep like Dodah Emma, Savta Rebecca, Eema and Dodah Anna!"

That got him growled at. "Yes I fu... bloody well do! Don't you laugh at me Mister! Just because _you're_ some kind of cyborg who doesn't need sleep doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with those of us who do!"

Her pique faded as she was wrapped in his arms and kissed, and Lottie and Charlie piled on to make it a four way hug, but then Chuck started laughing quietly and the look he got from her said that he better explain or else!

Chuck shook his head. "I was just remembering when I first started seeing the reports about the Ice Queen in Ninety Nine, because the image they generated in my head was of a beautiful and lethal cyborg, I guess two out of three ain't bad."

Sarah started shaking her head at him with a smile, but stopped and looked at the girls with concern.

It was Chuck's turn to shake his head. "We don't hide things from the girls Sarah, they aren't children, any more than we were at their age. They know what we do sometimes and they've been working with us for years now so they've seen all too many reports and images of that sort of thing. Growing up in Israel until they were eight, they saw more than most American kids too. And don't forget, they _are_ Frost's Granddaughters!"

That got the girls another hug from Sarah, then they went for their run with Ellie, Viv and Lexie, _after_ telling Chuck that he'd have to put in extra effort later to make up for slacking off like this. That made Sarah laugh, yep, these were Frost's Granddaughters alright!

After they'd left, Chuck explained that while he did need to keep up his fitness levels, he liked to run with the Ellie and the girls to help Benjie ward off unwanted attention. Sarah could understand that, because seven gorgeous young women like them (Ellie was Twenty Nine, Lexie was nearly Twenty Two, Katy was Nineteen, Viv and Josie were around seventeen and Lottie and Charlie were fourteen and they were all around five foot seven to ten with beautiful faces and great bodies and legs) in running gear would stop traffic. She told him to go after them, because she knew that he would be able to catch up easily enough, but he shook his head, saying that they could look after themselves, and he had to get to work on what they'd need to resolve the current situation.

* * *

That reminded Sarah that she was going to have to call Graham and tell him she was going in to engage the target this morning, and she expected him to warn her that Casey was also moving in and tell her to make sure she got to the target ahead of him. The most logical approach would be to tell Graham after she 'engaged' Chuck that she'd managed to talk him into taking her out so that she could manoeuvre him into telling her where the email from Larkin was, and that would also give them a bit more breathing space to come up with something to make a good enough argument to 'keep him in the world'.

They stayed where they were and cuddled for a little while longer then went to have their showers and went downstairs. It didn't take Chuck long to set up the news feeds, which included numerous military information channels from around the world, and he settled down to watch them, scribbling notes when something flashed up at him. John had come down too and he and Sarah were discussing the best way to handle this.

Chuck suddenly jerked, looking as though he was having a seizure. They both rushed over, but it seemed to be finished by the time they reached him, he wiped a hand over his face, looking exhausted, but smiled when Sarah anxiously asked "Charlie Honey, are you okay?", pulling her in for a kiss and saying "Yeah, I just wasn't expecting that!"

"What happened? You looked like you were having a seizure!"

"Yeah, it's apparently how this thing works when it brings up a lot of information in one go, it kicks my arse! Previously I just got small hits on things and they were easy enough to take, but this, yeah this one really hit me. The good news though is that I think we have the event we need to make this thing work, someone's planning on blowing up the Pacific Security League Conference tonight at a hotel here in LA so we just need to get enough information together to stop it."

She looked him in the eye, still concerned, but he smiled and leaned in to kiss her again, saying "Sweetie, I'm okay, really!" softly. Her look didn't change at first as she ran her fingers through his hair, smoothing it back, but she obviously decided that he was telling her the truth as she nodded, gave him another kiss and then went off to report in to Graham that she'd engaged the target and talked him into a date so she could get him into a setting where she could control what was happening.

* * *

By the time she was off the phone, Chuck had a vast array of search engines running up on the screens, looking for anything and everything to do with the conference and the plot, and he asked for her phone.

Sarah handed it over with a questioning look and he explained as he led the way to the electronics lab. "This entire building is shielded, so I haven't been too worried about it up to now, but your phone is bound to be loaded with CIA bugs and trackers, so we need to work out how to deal with them before you take it out of here. We also need to find out whether the CIA has already activated them so you can get your story straight when you have a longer talk to Graham. So long as they haven't been activated, I can set up everything to show that you flew in late last night and stayed at a hotel somewhere, which fits with what you've told Graham, let's just hope that he was too shaken and focused on covering his arse yesterday to order them to be turned on."

She smiled at that and kissed him. "I knew there was a reason to keep you around, I hadn't considered any of that! From the times I talked to him yesterday, and even just now though, I think we should be okay, as he's still running around trying to stop all of this blowing up in his face because ultimately, he's the one who put Larkin in the position to be able to do this."

Chuck grinned "Let's hope!"

When he pulled her phone apart and tested all the (many) add-ons inside, he quickly confirmed that most of them hadn't been activated as yet, so he checked what the one active one did and held (it was a bug that looked like it was always on, set to record any and all phone conversations, but there wasn't anything in the recording that could really cause a problem for Sarah. The worst were the discussions with Aunt Jane about keeping her in Europe, but they'd always been careful about what they said because they'd expected to be monitored. Then he jumped onto the computer and inserted all the relevant records to show that she'd been in New York when Graham called her (Sarah was wide eyed as she watched him changing the phone company logs right across the country to virtually reroute all the early calls and messages from California to New York) and had gotten onto a flight to LAX a couple of hours later, booking into a hotel when she arrived (for that, he changed the hotel records of a room where the occupant had booked out early to get her a room that had been used the night before). He also got into the systems of the rental company to alter the records to show that she'd rented the Porsche at their office over near the hotel (part of the reason to choose that hotel) early that morning, instead of in San Diego the day before.

Sarah shook her head at how thorough he was, but froze as something suddenly clicked. "Shit! That's not just a snappy name for your company is it? You really _are_ the Piranha, aren't you?"

He looked at her quizzically. "I wouldn't have expected you to know that name Sarah, but yeah."

She shook her head. "I don't really know much about that world, but one of the CIA techs... I'm pretty sure the _best_ CIA tech, has helped me quite a lot over the years and he has a serious case of hero worship for the Piranha, so he raves about him... you... all the time."

Chuck grinned. "It's nice to be appreciated! Who is this tech?"

"Pete Tong, I don't expect..."

"Ah! The Mongol! Yeah, he _is_ about the best the CIA has, or one of the best at least."

Sarah shook her head again. "Do you keep track of _everyone_ in the business?"

"No, just the ones who are good enough to represent a risk to us."

She stopped and looked musingly at him. "What about the others? We've apparently got some of the world's top special ops and intelligence people in the family, and knowing you, you've got the top hackers too."

He grinned. "Well Anna's normally known as the Lotus, she's right up there, and so is Jeff as Rosco. Skip is around Pete's level, his hacker tag is Skippy. Anna was the one who gave Skip and I our tags, I got the name the Piranha because Anna was boasting to the serious players in those circles that I could get into any site and strip it down to nothing but bare bones in minutes. That's not something that we normally do because it's generally far more productive to take copies of the information they have and leave without them knowing that you've even been there, but at the time we were trying to stop some major white slave rings which were well organised and used big computer systems to efficiently distribute all the information their teams needed to move their product around the world, locations, contacts, money drops, identification, everything. I found the quickest way to stop their operations was to cripple the computer systems hosting their information by wiping out every piece of code and data in them so that they had to be rebuilt from scratch before they could be used again, which generally took weeks... We've come up with more effective ways of destroying systems so they _can't_ be rebuilt since then, but that was back in the early days... Anyway, wiping out the systems left their shipments stranded wherever they were but I extracted all of the information about them from the systems before I trashed them, so our teams moved in before they could do anything to the product, took out their people, freed the girls and boys and cleaned out any money and valuables, then went on to wipe out the rest of the sites where they were meant to be moved to the same way. Unfortunately less than half of those girls and boys could go home after that so we made a place for the rest of them with us and set them up with new lives... Quite a few of the most promising young agents and officers around the world now have come from those girls and boys we took in. The fact that most of those computer systems I wiped out were actually government systems in countries that were harbouring the slavers made me the world's most wanted black turban... that's a name that we coined for cyber terrorists and it was taken up in certain circles... at the time, so that's how I became known as the Piranha. I tried to get Anna back by calling her Lotus Blossom but that backfired because she just embraced it as a pretty name that suited her and so did everyone else. And Anna started calling Skip, Skippy after we were watched late night reruns of that god awful Australian show 'Skippy the Bush Kangaroo', and it stuck. Jeff absolutely loved the Dukes of Hazard, well Daisy Duke anyway, so he named his hacker tag after the idiot sheriff from that series, because he thought all cyber cops were incompetent fools..." He snorted. "He actually did do quite a good job of running rings around everyone the government sent after him until he pissed off the wrong people and _we_ were given the job of stopping him. I tracked him down, John captured him and at my insistence Auntie Di offered him a choice between the life in a black site that the powers that be were demanding for him and working for us, for some reason he chose us... He took it surprisingly well when he found that he'd actually been beaten by a couple of kids."

* * *

She nodded musingly as most of that had made sense. "So how did you become the Chameleon, and Mowgli for that matter?"

"The Chameleon came out of having to cover up the fact that I was still a kid when I started going on missions and doing specialised training, because I was too small for a guy of the expected age for that sort of thing. We started making me up to look older and passing me off as a midget who was in the business because with the right make up I could get away with playing a kid, or as a petite woman, and we found that it was actually easier to make me look like a young woman in her late teens or early twenties than it was to make me look like an older midget. Luckily I've got Mom's ability to pretty much become anyone we see and I've lived in households full of women most of my life so I picked up the mannerisms easily and was quite convincing as a girl... Ellie can mimic people she sees to an extent too, but she took more after Dad as an analyst and scientist while I took after Mom more..."

Sarah snorted. "Yeah, you've always been a bit of a Mama's boy, but when your Mama's actually Frost, I guess that's not such a bad thing."

He shook his head and hugged her, then went on. "I mainly got into the cyber side of things in Ninety to look for you. Anyway, playing a woman worked so well that I did it half of the time up until I got so tall that I would have attracted more attention as a woman than I did as a man, but Ellie, Anna and I still change our appearance for most missions to keep our identities a secret... The fact that Chuck and Ellie Bartowski were both blondes helped with that because most people don't see past the hair... Two of the ones we helped build new lives for themselves after we rescued them from the slavers were Bonnie and Cly..."

He jumped in to forestall the obvious joke. "No, not Bonnie and Clyde, Bonnie and _Cly,_ or more formally Bonita and Clyone, two Special Effects artists who are among the best in Hollywood nowadays. They found that they had a genius for that sort of thing when they were helping Mom, Ellie and Auntie Em make me look like a girl or older, so they've been doing that for us since then. We set them up in business as one of Carmichael Industries' subsidiaries and they're doing quite well for themselves as Bonnie and Cly FX Studios, their offices are down the other end of the building and we send at least one or two 'assistants' with them for protection whenever they have to go on site for a job. Groups of our friends from our other bases rotate through here to use the urban training range all the time so we always have people available for protective details..."

"Mowgli... Well Mom, Uncle Roan, Uncle Bry and Auntie Di got Ellie and I, and Anna, into most of the U.S. Military's special operations training programs, and the Israeli's and a few others as well. With the ability Ellie and I got from Mom we just ate it up, and Anna's been quite good at martial arts since she was a little kid so she managed to piss off a lot of the big he-man types who were three or four years older than her by matching or beating them too. Because we were working across the services we decided early on to hide our established identities by using one made up tag across all the services. I was arguing with some special forces guys about the stupid disparaging comments they were making about the SEALs one day so one of them started calling me Mowgli, which was supposed to mean Frog in Kipling's jungle language. Uncle Bry, Mom, Uncle Roan and Auntie Di decided that that was perfect for what we were looking for so it was agreed that we'd use Jungle Book character names for all of us..."

He hesitated for a moment before he continued. "You'll find this out soon enough so I may as well tell you now, Ellie and I really _are_ SEALs Sammie. We did so well in all the other special ops training and missions that Uncle Bry bet some buddies of his in the SEALs that he had a couple of kids who could wipe the floor anyone and everyone they put up against us. They weren't going to back down from a bet like that and they knew that Uncle Bry didn't make idle boasts, so they put together a class that was made up of their best prospects and the best of their recent graduates. They tried to call off the bet when they found out that Ellie was actually a girl, but she goaded them about being afraid to face a little girl until they told her to put up or shut up. We put a half the class in the hospital and Ellie killed one of them one night because they'd decided to show her what women are _really_ meant for, but she had no trouble dealing with the third or so of them who got past me while I was dealing with the others. The one she killed was about cave in the back of my skull while I was fighting two other guys. The SEALs' pride wouldn't let them disrespect us after we'd met all the requirements with flying colours, thrashed the best they could put up against us _and_ set some new records in the process, so we were both formally accepted into the SEALs and have been welcomed and honoured as fellow SEALs every time we've operated or dealt with them since then. There's a good chance that Lexie, Katy, Alex, Benjie, Josie, Viv and the twins will be taking a shot at earning their tridents in the next few months too, if they do Anna, Bai and Zoe will be going with them. Kim wants to as well but it will be harder for her because she hasn't been training for it most of her life like Benjie and the other girls have, so she isn't up to their level."

Sarah gave him a long look at that. "That's something that I'd love to take a shot at as well Charlie. The SAD guys always told me that I was close to you and Ellie's level and I'd like to see if that was true of they were just trying to butter me up."

He nodded solemnly to her. "From what I remember and have heard you should be able do it without trouble. Some of them _may_ have been blowing smoke up your arse to try and get you into bed, but most of the ones I know wouldn't have said that unless it were true. You know that you don't need to prove anything to anyone Sammie, but if you really want to test yourself, we've been talking to the guys for a while about inserting a couple of boat crews made up of Benjie and the girls into the testing process, going up against their regular SEAL prospects, and it's pretty much agreed that it will happen because I think a lot of them want to see how Viv and the twins measure up to Ellie and I. Benjie and the girls are all pretty determined to test themselves but I'm sure we could add another one into the testing."

That got him a kiss and he almost laughed as she started to rise, obviously wanting to get started with training then settled back, deciding that the business at hand was more important. She didn't miss his reaction though and punched him in the arm with a laugh.

* * *

After that, they went to see what the search engines had come up with. Chuck found where the job to blow up the conference was advertised on the Russian Business Network, noting that it was actually targeting NATO General Leland Stanfield, and picked up who'd taken the job, a well known Serbian bomb maker. He got a number more flashes of information as he saw these facts, including the schedule of when General Stanfield would be on stage and some of the plans for the bomb, so they knew where and when to be there and had an idea of who and what to look for and Chuck inserted the details into the hotel's system to ensure that they had a specific table allocated for their dinner reservation in the restaurant at the hotel, one where they could see both the service and main entrances for San Francisco Room where the conference was.

With their plans laid out, Sarah went off to get settled into 'her' hotel room (telling the ones at reception that she'd lost her key when she went out to get a car and collect her bags from the airport when they called to say that they'd finally found them) and do what she'd be expected to do for the day. Chuck, Jeff, Anna, Lou and Skip had to put in the time looking after MTS's business clients, as many of them were getting hit hard by the new 'Irene Demova' Virus that was going around because guys were accessing the supposed porn site from their work computers and getting them fried. A lot of home computers were getting fried as well but the business computers had priority.

* * *

As they entered the hotel to go to the restaurant, they saw Casey at the bar but ignored him. They actually had a good time at dinner, having the expected discussions for the now active bugs in Sarah's phone, though the way Sarah's eyes were flashing at some of the cracks Casey was making over their earwigs, knowing that they couldn't respond because of the bugs, said that they'd be having a serious discussion, probably involving blood and bruises, when it was safe to do so.

Chuck didn't see the Serbian bomber entering the Conference, and as the time that the bomb was supposed to be set off drew closer, John said that they couldn't wait any longer. They paid up and left the restaurant, then John approached them and came out with a few atrocious lines that Chuck wouldn't be letting him forget about for a _long_ time, quoting Robocop, really? Anyway, that gave Chuck the opportunity to go into his own lines "Wait, that guy, the one who just went in there, he's a bomber, oh my god he's going to blow up the General!" and with that he pulled free of Casey and ran into the San Francisco room.

When they were inside and Casey and Sarah got the security people to back down by flashing their NSA and CIA credentials while Chuck searched for the bomber, trying to ignore Casey's comments over the earwig about how bad his lines were. " _You_ can talk? 'Dead or alive, you're coming with me'? Never mind, shut up, we've got to find this guy!"

Just at that moment he spotted the bomber and Casey pointed him out to the security people, but as they were closing in on him he reached for something in his jacket and they blew him away. Chuck was ignoring that as he looked for the bomb, and spotted the covered serving cart that the bomber had left standing there.

When they got to the serving cart and opened the top, Chuck knew what the bomber had been reaching for, as the timer was running and was under thirty seconds, looking inside the cloth covers underneath didn't improve anything, as there were enough explosives there to quite possibly bring down the building, but the bomb wasn't made to the plans that Chick had seen in the Intersect and none of them recognised anything in the wiring that would help them disarm it. Just then Chuck registered that the laptop that was being used for the arming mechanism was a cheap one that they'd been seeing a lot of that day, because the basic design made them particularly susceptible to the Demova virus.

He jumped onto the keyboard, enabling the WiFi, connecting to the hotel's network and bringing up a browser to search for the malware site. Time was running out as he entered the site, and the virus fried the laptop and killed the detonator mechanism with only a few seconds to spare. He went to snap at Casey when he made a crack about puking on the C4, but held it as he could see that Casey was just as shaken as he was, they all were, because Sarah had come into his arms as the laptop died and was still clinging onto him. They all knew just how close they'd been to being blown to smithereens, far better than anyone else in there did.

* * *

When he saw General Stanfield heading for them, Chuck grabbed his phone and activated the bug jammers, as they couldn't afford to let the CIA hear what was about to be said. "Charles, John, what's going on here?" Sarah felt Chuck draw himself up and went to step away but stopped when he grabbed her hand, obviously there was a reason he didn't want her to step away, but she stopped thinking about that when Chuck started speaking.

"Hello General…. Well I was actually on a date with my girlfriend at the restaurant here in the hotel when I recognised a Serbian bomber entering the room and I was pretty sure that he wasn't an official delegate, so I called John. I knew _he_ wouldn't be far away because he thinks I can't even go on a date without getting into trouble."

Casey cut in with. "Do you blame me? Did you forget about the massive bomb we're standing next to?"

At that the General barked " _What_ massive bomb?" and Casey pulled aside the cloth covering the body of the cart to show that it was packed with explosives "Shit! Why didn't you mention _that_ before? _Johnson!_ "

When the head of security ran up, the General snapped at him to get that cart out of here! When the man went to grab it angrily he stopped him with. "Carefully you fool! There's enough explosives in there to level the building!" After that Johnson very gingerly took hold of the handle and slowly pushed the cart from the room. With that, the General turned back to Chuck and he continued.

"We got into the room and I identified the bomber, but the security people shot him and then we found out that he'd armed the bomb, so we had to disarm it, and that's where we are."

"You've prevented a major catastrophe here today Charles, and I'll make sure that the proper authorities know about it!"

"I'm sorry General, but I'm afraid that we can't let you do that. You see while we _are_ here on a date, I'm actually in the middle of an operation, and I couldn't risk my real identity getting out so I'm using my cover identity, a civilian by the name of Chuck Bartowski... And we also need to cover up the fact that Sarah is my girlfriend, because she's a CIA agent who's in LA on an operation herself... and our relationship _isn't_ officially known, let alone sanctioned."

"You do live a complicated life, don't you Charles? Alright, I won't do anything publicly just yet, but I _will_ be having some private talks with the General and the appropriate parties about this, you'll be getting recognition for what you did here, deal with it!"

Chuck nodded with a smile, saying. "Thank you sir"

The General looked at Sarah. "And while I understand your situation, your part in this _will_ be in the official record too young lady, so hopefully you will be officially recognised for it one day Miss?..."

"Walker Sir, Sarah Walker, and thank you."

The General nodded and went to leave, but stopped and turned back to Sarah with a smile. "I should have known that Charles had someone incredible hidden away, the way he's shot down every woman who's ever come after him. I hope you realise just how special this man of your's is Miss Walker!"

Sarah smiled at him. 'Oh, I do Sir! Thank you."

With that, he left with a smile and Chuck turned the bug jammers off as they headed out of the conference room. When they'd left the Hotel, Sarah and Casey put on a good show of arguing over who was going to get custody of Chuck and how he was to be handled, and within half an hour Sarah had been contacted by Graham to tell her that she and Casey would be staying in LA to guard Chuck and act as his handlers.

* * *

To keep up appearances, Chuck headed off to the beach and Sarah 'tracked him down' there, having the type of conversation that the CIA would expect to hear before she took him home and headed off to her hotel room to try and get a bit of rest before she went into the FBI office in the morning with Casey for the first official briefing on this assignment.

As soon as Sarah had left, Chuck got to work, as he had to have everything properly set up before the briefing in the morning. The others helped for a while before they went off to bed, but he did the bulk of it himself. The only details of their cover lives that he'd touched on so far was that he'd offered Sarah a job at PS&T and quietly told her that officially, Ellie would be sharing his apartment with him and Casey would be taking over Ellie's apartment. He had until the briefing in the morning to create everything else. But he also had an even bigger job, creating a bullet proof business case to convince everyone that the Human Intersect team had to be operated under _very_ strict parameters if they wanted him, as the Human Intersect, to be able to continue working effectively.

By the time that Auntie Di came on-line at about 3AM his time, he had much of it done, the records showed that Coltrane Security had recently been sold to Cinders Security (the beauty of that name was that while it had meaning for them, around Hollywood it would just be associated with a Cinderella story so they could use it openly) and they'd had the development application to alter their part of the building approved by the local planning department. All the electronic records were in place to show that Cinders Security was a legitimate company, making up a new franchise of an established international security services company (Quadling Security Services) that was looking to take a bite out of the lucrative LA corporate and protective security market. The owner of the LA company, Phoebe Phillips (better known as Phoebe Noble or the operative Cleopatra Jones up until she was burned in the Eighties), would run the LA operation as Cinders Security. The story line was that one of the owners of QSS was a proud patriot who had agreed to not only take John Casey on officially as the second on charge for the new LA operation, but also to allow the government to add whatever they wanted into the premises refit.

The personnel list that Chuck had put together for Cinders Security made Di shake her head, because aside from a handful of her on the books agents like Rick Noble, Rocky Johnson, Zoe Alleyne, Robin Cunnings, Sam and Gypsy Colt, Vicky Dunwoody, Sydney Prince and Lexie White, it was mostly made up of the best of their 'friends', who'd been supposedly been brought in from other franchises of QSS or part of Cinders security (which of course looked like an established company even though Chuck had only created it a few hours ago), these were Phoebe Phillips, Buck Posey, Gertie Zerbanski, Marco Kostov, Ilsa Trinchina, Yuri Gabrienko, Louis Chekov, Albert Laurent, Bai Lee, Alex Forrest, Charly Baltimore, John Clarke, Ding Chavez, Mike Colt, Javier Cruz, Vinnie Smith, Michael Weston, Sam Axe, Fiona Glenanne and Bob Simms. Most of them had enough experience in corporate and protective security to pull it off, but more to the point their 'friends' had all been highly respected and capable soldiers, special operations or intelligence operatives, so the Cinders Security team made for a formidable force, especially with John, Bry and the others added to it.

Part of the work that Chuck had had to do was to ensure that all of their 'friends' records would stand up to thorough investigation by the CIA, and the NSA and FBI for that matter. He was still checking that when Diane came on-line and they started discussing it. He filled her in on what he'd told Sarah and cleared with Ellie, that Sarah would bring up the fact that he'd offered her a job with his company and Ellie was listed as sharing his apartment, while Anna and Lou and Jeff and Skip were listed as sharing other apartments. This was both to make it more believable for them to be living in a place like El Castillo, and so that the 'NSA' could lease Ellie's apartment next to his for John to use, as the records now showed that it had recently become vacant because the previous tenant moved back east.

Chuck went on with the explanation, because that had been the easy part, the hard part was putting together enough of an in-depth and bullet proof history of Chuck Bartowski, basket case, to convince everyone that the solution they were trying to present was the _only_ workable option. This included counsellor and psychiatrist reports, statements from students and professors back at Stanford, colleagues and customers, Ellie's friends from UCLA and Westside, a veritable mountain of evidence to show that Chuck Bartowski was borderline as it was and he would almost certainly be a basket case who was good for nothing but a rubber room if he _ever_ had to experience any sort of betrayal or abandonment again. They had a few things going in their favour here, like the fact that he hadn't had anything to do with any woman other than family members and his lesbian best friends since he finished at Stanford, except for that one date he'd had with Agent Sarah Walker. As General Stanfield had told Sarah, he didn't even talk to women most of the time. Then they had the fact that over ninety percent of their business dealings with customers or anyone else were actually handled by Anna, Lou, Jeff or Skip, mainly Anna or Lou, because Chuck was usually working behind the scenes so that he could get away for his other work if required.

Put together with the reports and statements that he'd created and salted throughout systems around the country, ranging from psychiatrists' practices and Stanford to comments on social media sites about Ellie's brother and the FBI, they showed a clear image of a brilliant but exceedingly fragile young man who'd been utterly destroyed when he was betrayed by both his best friend and his long term girlfriend at university. His business was apparently only functioning because his gay and lesbian best friends were running it for him, and he was incapable of having functional social interactions, _especially_ with women. This all made the fact that he'd actually had a date with Agent Walker all the more amazing.

The NSA's favoured psychiatrist, Dr Leo Dreyfus, had formally reviewed all the reports about Mr Bartowski and stated that in his professional opinion, _any_ further indication of betrayal or abandonment was likely to finish what the betrayal that he'd experienced at Stanford had started, rendering him an irretrievable basket case. He further opined that Mr Bartowski had probably only opened up to Agent Walker because she was almost the total opposite of the flirty, unfaithful woman who'd come so close to destroying him in University. (Auntie Di had supplied him with a recording of what the CIA would have heard at dinner and they'd set that up to portray Sarah as a friendly but reserved young woman who was being honest about her past, so he based his report on that.)

By the time the briefing started, Auntie Di had gone through all of this with the DNI, citing her concerns that the Director of the CIA's usual heavy handed approach of using sexual politics, if not outright sex, to control the subject would almost certainly break the Human Intersect, and manoeuvred the DNI into taking the formal position that America _needed_ the Intersect database, so if the only existing copy of this database was now in the head of a rather fragile young man, _nothing_ could be allowed to threaten the emotional stability of that young man in any way.

After she finished with the DNI, Diane called Chuck and laughed. "Have you ever considered going into politics Chuck? You've got both the DNI and the President just about ready to order anyone who _might_ do anything to disturb your delicate equilibrium to be locked up, and they're on the verge of begging Sarah to marry you, just to ensure that you stay happy and stable. I've expressed my concerns that the CIA may not be willing to handle this in as sensitive a manner as we are convinced will be necessary to keep you working properly and they're working on that executive order you proposed to have Sarah exclusively transferred to my control, along with the rest of it, being actioned in time for the briefing."

Chuck grinned at that. "I would be willing to make the sacrifice of marrying Agent Walker for the good of the country General."

"I just bet you would! We're not out of the woods yet Honey, but with all the groundwork you've done here I'm sure that we can get Sarah locked into this and protected from that bastard Graham's plans for her. I hope you're as proud of yourself as I am of you!"

"I'll celebrate when it's confirmed that she's safe Auntie Di. We can't underestimate Graham."

"I know that Honey, but we've got a really good case _and_ the backing we need now, thanks to you!"

* * *

With that, he sent everything that she'd need for the briefing in the morning through to her and told her that he'd make sure that all the rest of the records would hold up before he went to bed. He put a few more hours in before he crawled into bed, utterly drained by the day he'd had, and Anna let him sleep in until 8 because she knew he wouldn't have stopped until it was all done. She had looked up what he'd put together though, so after she'd given him his coffee, she hit him. "Are you kidding me? Did you specifically go out looking for tall, leggy bitches? Fi is the only one who doesn't tower over us, and don't even get me started on Auntie Phoebe! Way to look out for the self esteem issues of the mothers of your children Chuck!"

He shrugged. "Hey, you can blame Mom and Auntie Di for most of them, I only had our friends and the Lost Children who were available and had the skill sets we needed to fit into type of the company we were creating to work with, and Auntie Phoebe wanted to come over because her boys are here, not to mention Benjie. If it makes you feel any better, think of how John's going to react when he meets Uncle Buck, Uncle Louie, Uncle Mike and Yuri."

That got a grin from her. "Oh yeah, he won't like that, damn they're big!"

"I'd say Yuri's more tall than big but yeah, Uncle Buck, Uncle Mike and Uncle Louie certainly have the big title down."

"Uh-huh, anyway, time to get up, you need to get some work done before your girl comes back and distracts you again because you hardly got anything done yesterday."

He swatted her on the behind for that and she leant in to give him a kiss with a laugh, then turned serious. "I'm so glad you found her Chuck! I have to admit, I was worried that you'd be searching for her in vain for the rest of your life and die miserable and alone, and you don't deserve that, you're the best man there is. I've never been more glad to be wrong in my life!"

He hugged her, quietly saying after a bit. "Yeah, I've wondered quite a bit about that myself over the last eighteen years Hon, I can tell you."

She wrapped her arms around him and said. "Well you don't have to wonder about that any more, you've got her back, so now all you have to do is sort out the government and make sure they can't interfere with us, no problem!" With that, she kissed him again and headed out the door.

* * *

Sarah met Casey outside the FBI's LA office, her earwig already in place so the others could talk to her while she was in there. For the benefit of the CIA's bugs, Casey asked. "Did you tuck Bartowski in all snug last night Walker?"

"I made sure that the asset was delivered safely into his apartment building, as you well know Casey, because I saw you following us!"

"Alright, Don't get your panties in a bunch Walker! Come on, get moving, _your_ boss may not be there on time but I don't want to keep the General waiting."

She proceeded him into the building, sharing a quick smile when they knew that they were out of range of any cameras.

Once they were in the secure teleconference room, the link to DC was initiated and they went over the events of the night before. Di did a good job of covering up her look of triumph when Graham buckled and formally (if reluctantly) agreed that it would be in everyone's best interests for the Human Intersect to remain 'in the world', with the Walker and Casey as his handlers, though he made a point of eagerly stressing that Walker's cover was going to be Bartowski's girlfriend.

When they started discussing the arrangements of the assignment, Sarah brought up the fact that Chuck had offered her a place in his company as an office manager or something the night before and that was quickly locked in as no-one could argue with that being a good thing. Graham was rather suspicious when Di said that they'd already managed to secure the recently vacated apartment next to Mister Bartowski's for Major Casey, and also that they'd officially placed him as the second in charge of the security company being established in the same the building complex that Mister Bartowski's business and apartment were located in, and furthermore that the owners of that security company had given the government carte-blanche to change or add whatever they wanted while they were refitting the premises, so they were currently working on plans to add a bunker which would be accessed from Major Casey's office for the team's operations centre.

When she baited the hook with in a dig about there being enough room for Sarah to share the apartment that they'd acquired for Major Casey if that made things easier, Graham bit, just as they'd planned. For a man of his intelligence, Graham's ego made him remarkably easy to play. "That won't be necessary General, we'll be setting Agent Walker up at Maison Twenty Three on a short term basis, but her mandate will be to ramp up her relationship with the asset quickly and ensure that she to moves in with him within a month, two at the absolute most, because he and the rest of this operation need to be brought under control as soon as possible!"

Even knowing that they were working to a plan, Diane could see Sarah getting upset about such a blatant order to screw Chuck into submission as quickly as possible, but she saw her calm down when John whispered something into his mic. She looked at Graham. "Have you actually reviewed Mister Bartowski's file Director?"

"I've skimmed it, what of it?"

She reached forward and picked up a very thick folder from the front of the desk, dropping it onto the desk in front of him with a weighty 'thunk'. Graham's eyes went wide at that, because the CIA hadn't found anywhere near this much on Bartowski.

"Our people have been working around the clock to gather information on Mister Bartowski since you shared his identity with us Director Graham, and the reports they have uncovered show that Mister Bartowski was subjected to a number of extremely traumatic experiences while he was at Stanford, the first of these required him to fight off a group of thugs from the university's football team who broke into his girlfriend's dorm room with the intent of gang raping her and their friend, and resulted in the campus police trying to have him arrested and charged with attempted murder among other things, but by far the worst of them involved _your_ Agent Bryce Larkin and that same girlfriend, Mister Bartowski's long term partner Jill Roberts!"

"From what we got out of the university's records, your Agent Larkin framed Mister Bartowski for cheating and actually managed to get him expelled just before they graduated, though Mister Bartowski's family managed to have that overturned with the FBI's assistance, and it was reportedly the damages settlement from that incident which gave him the money to start his business when he was finally able to face the world again. But on top of framing him and getting him expelled, your Agent Larkin _then_ video taped himself having sex with Miss Roberts" (Anna had convinced Chuck that he'd protected Jill by preventing anyone from seeing that video at the time, but he needed to use the video to save himself, and very few people would see it now anyway, so the unaltered sex tape was included as part of the evidence) "and proceeded to make sure that everyone in Palo Alto, and many others right across the country from what we discovered, knew about both that _and_ Mister Bartowski's being expelled for cheating. With his relationship, reputation and career prospects completely destroyed, Mister Bartowski had a total breakdown that required years of psychiatric help to recover enough from to be able to deal with people again."

"Even now, he remains a semi-recluse. His best friends Anna Wang, Louisa Rabi and Michael Johnson and a third cousin Thomas Jefferson Barnes effectively run his company for him and help his family keep him on an even keel. He has not had anything to do with any woman other than those in his immediate family and Miss Wang and Miss Rabi, who are a lesbian couple by the way, since he was betrayed and abandoned by Miss Roberts that way, as a result of Agent Larkin's actions."

"Our agency psychiatrists have reviewed the reports of the psychiatrists he has been seeing over the past seven years, and have registered the professional opinion that _any_ further incidents would almost certainly seriously effect, and quite possibly eliminate, Mister Bartowski's ability to function as the Human Intersect."

"They have all stated that they were amazed that Agent Walker managed to get far enough past his defences for Mister Bartowski to not only agree to have a date with her, but from Major Casey's report appear to be enjoying himself up until the point where he identified that bomber. The fact is, other than his lesbian friends who he's known since Middle School and are effectively male to him, no other woman has managed to get anywhere near that close to him in over seven years, but Agent Walker jumping into bed with him straight away would almost certainly remind him of Miss Roberts and destroy the trust he has apparently placed in her, and in our psychiatrists' view that in turn is quite likely to effect if not destroy his ability to function as the Human Intersect. We simply cannot allow the well being of the Human Intersect and this operation to be endangered in that way Director."

"The _only_ way any kind of relationship between Mister Bartowski and Agent Walker would be allowed to progress would be if Agent Walker were to enter into something more akin to a normal romantic relationship with him, to allow his trust and affection for her to develop at a natural pace. And while we're on the subject, in view of the serious effect that previous betrayals had on Mister Bartowski, if Agent Walker _were_ to do this, we could not allow any possibility of any situations, on mission or off, where Agent Walker was engaged in any activities that Mister Bartowski could be expected to regard as a betrayal of the trust he has placed in her. Are you willing to commit to that Agent Walker?"

"What do you mean Ma'am? I don't really understand what it is you're asking?"

"What I mean is no missions involving any form of seduction, unless it's minor and we, or more to the point _you_ , have agreed it with Mister Bartowski beforehand, or engaging in _any_ activities of an amorous or sexual nature in any locations where you could possibly be seen or recorded, as that could result in him finding out about it."

"That is rather restrictive, and I must say intrusive into my private life Ma'am! In fact you're telling me that I cannot _have_ a private life!"

Diane gave a regretful sigh. "Yes, I am aware of that and I am truly sorry Agent Walker, but our experts' reviews of Mister Bartowski's psychiatric history have led all of them to the conclusion that any further betrayals of _any_ kind would almost certainly push him into a state where we would lose our last remaining access to the Intersect information permanently... I am willing to supply copies of these records and reports to you if you wish to confirm what I am telling you. The problem is, when Agent Larkin stole the copy of the Intersect that he sent to Mister Bartowski, he also destroyed the Intersect Facility and every other known copy of the Intersect code and data with it, so to the best of our knowledge, the last and _only_ copy of the Intersect and Intersect information is now residing inside Mister Bartowski's head. Quite frankly, we have no idea how Mister Bartowski has survived at all because there is no record of any previous Intersect test subjects surviving, but the fact remains that he _has_ survived, and more importantly he appears to be able to access and effectively make use of the Intersect information in his head, which makes him a unique and priceless intelligence resource for our country. So I will ask again, on the basis of this information, are you willing to commit to complying in full with the conditions I have laid out to participate in the Human Intersect Project Agent Walker?"

Sarah pretended to consider this. "Well, I _would_ like to see those reports for myself General, but on the understanding that what you have told me is accurate, yes Ma'am, I am prepared to commit to complying with your conditions in full."

* * *

Graham growled. "You may choose what you do in your personal life up to a point Walker, but on missions you will do whatever you're ordered to and don't you forget it! And furthermore _General_ , you do _not_ have the authority to dictate to the CIA what instructions we give our agents on missions!"

"Not generally perhaps Director Graham, but due to Mister Bartowski's history and mental state, and the fact that _your_ agent has destroyed every other known copy of the Intersect code and data, I _have_ been formally authorised to enforce any and all conditions I deem necessary to ensure that the operational integrity of the Human Intersect is protected. Without a formal commitment from the CIA to comply with _all_ the conditions I have stated, Agent Walker and therefore the CIA will not be permitted to have _any_ involvement in the Human Intersect Project."

Graham sneered. "You don't have the authority to make that decision _General_!"

The screen suddenly split and the DNI appeared on one side. "As General Beckman has already informed you Director, she _has_ been formally given that authority by both myself and the President! I have been monitoring this meeting because of the gravity of the situation we have been put in as a result of the actions of a rogue CIA agent, and the concerns I had about territorial posturing potentially threatening the viability of the Human Intersect. I am very disappointed to see that those concerns were quite valid... I was _also_ disappointed to see that while General Beckman immediately reported these issues of national security to me when she was made aware of them and it was your duty to do the same, you have _not_ done so Director Graham. So as the Director of National Intelligence, I hereby require the CIA's official answer to General Beckman's question Director, will the CIA formally commit to complying in full with all the conditions that General Beckman has advised you of, or not?"

Graham gritted his teeth. "Yes sir, we will, but we will have to replace Agent Walker with another agent, as we cannot afford to lose one of our best agents to a project of this nature."

"That is not an option Director, because as General Beckman has clearly stated, our experts have been astounded by the unprecedented amount of trust that Mister Bartowski has apparently placed in Agent Walker. From their reports, he would almost certainly regard it as both a betrayal _and_ an abandonment if Agent Walker were to suddenly disappear and someone he didn't know was pushed on him to take her place, especially given the fact that we still have no idea just what it was about Agent Walker that made him trust her the way he appears to in the first place. Therefore, the agreement I'm after here and now from the CIA is for Agent Walker, and _only_ Agent Walker, to be irrevocably and exclusively assigned to the Human Intersect Project for the duration of the project. Under the terms that the General has already explained, for the duration of the Human Intersect Project Agent Walker will _only_ operate as part of the Human Intersect team and will _not_ perform any other missions outside of the Human Intersect team, either solo or with any other agents. She will also _not_ complete any functions relating to seduction unless both she and the Human Intersect have agreed beforehand. Nor will she be involved in any missions where she is required to act in a potentially compromising manner with other agents. General Beckman will have final authority on any and all orders issued to Agent Walker to ensure that these requirements are complied with. Providing that the CIA agrees to these conditions, the paperwork will be prepared for your, my and General Beckman's signatures and you can continue with setting up the Human Intersect operation."

"That is too restrictive sir, as I said, the CIA cannot afford to lose the services of one of its best agents like that. Under those terms, the CIA chooses to opt out of any involvement in this current Human Intersect Project. We will continue to search for our own suitable candidate and proceed with them once we locate one."

"Your position raises a number of questions Director, given the fact that as General Beckman has stated, according to the information that has been made available to me _all_ other known copies of the Intersect code and data were destroyed by Agent Larkin, but that is a discussion for another forum. I must formally ask for confirmation, is that the CIA's final word in regard to Agent Walker's participation in the Human Intersect Project Director?"

"Yes sir, it is!"

"Very well Director, remain where you are in General Beckman's office, as there is other paperwork that must be processed in that case."

* * *

Graham was certain that he'd just been manoeuvred into something, and when he saw Walker relax after Casey said something to her on screen, he knew that Beckman was up to something so he barked. "Walker, we're leaving! I expect you to be on the next plane to Langley!"

As he said that, the door to the office opened and the DNI walked in to hear Graham's order to Sarah. "Director Graham, are you disobeying the direct order I gave you?"

Graham was wondering how the hell he'd gotten there so quickly, then he realised that the DNI must have been waiting in an office close by, which confirmed his suspicion that this was a set up. "No sir, I was just giving my agent her orders."

The DNI looked at the screen. "Agent Walker, stay right where you are please!"

Sarah just nodded without saying a word.

Then he turned back to Graham. "It is my belief, Director, that you were in the process of wilfully disobeying a direct order that I had given you no more than ten minutes ago, but I will deal with _that_ another time."

He put some documents on the desk in front of Graham. "I require you to sign these to accept receipt, and then immediately action them exactly as ordered."

When Graham scanned the document, his face hardened. Looking up he said. "I decline sir, I will not give up my best agent!"

The DNI matched his expression. "What gives you the impression that you any longer have a choice in the matter Director? That ship sailed the moment you formally confirmed that you'd given your final word on the matter of Agent Walker's participation in the Human Intersect Project. Now, either sign to accept receipt of your orders and action them as directed or I will have the General sign the statement on the next page to say that she witnessed you refusing to do so! By the way Director, in case you've forgotten, refusing to accept a direct order from your Commander in Chief _can_ be construed as treason."

He suddenly stopped and turned to face the screen. "Agent Walker, I've just realised that we… no _I_ owe you an apology, as we have all been treating you as something to be traded and pushed about instead of an extraordinary young person who has already done and sacrificed so much in your service to your country. This document" (waving at what was on the desk in front of Graham) "is a signed Presidential Order, and if it is executed, from that point you will be part of the CIA in name only, you will be subject to no more orders from the Director or anyone else in the CIA, only General Beckman, as the Director of the Human Intersect Project, and she in turn will be subject only to orders from myself as the DNI, and the President himself. You will also be formally attached to the CIA's National Resources Division for the duration of this assignment so that you're legally authorised to operate within the United States, because it has been brought to our attention that at the moment you are operating illegally on U.S. soil. A similar order will be presented to the Director of the NSA for Major Casey, and a slightly different one for General Beckman herself to release both of them to the Human Intersect Project too. Under the terms of this order, you will operate purely as part of the Human Intersect team under the conditions that General Beckman and myself have explained and you _cannot_ be required or forced to perform any mission, by yourself or with other agents, outside of the team. Your assignment to the Human Intersect Project will also be permanent unless you formally request to return to the CIA, and another option available to you is that you may resign at any time if you so choose. I apologise for not treating you with the respect that you have earned, and deserve, prior to this Agent Walker. My only excuse is that we have been faced with a catastrophe here due to the actions of Agent Larkin and have been racing to try and beat the clock before it all blew up in our faces, much like you, Major Casey and Mister Bartowski did last night with that bomb. However, I am now formally asking whether you choose to be transferred to the Human Intersect Project under these terms, or would you prefer to stay in the CIA in your current capacity?"

Sarah's eyes were shining but she kept her expression neutral as she drew herself up. "I choose to be transferred to the Human Intersect Project under the terms that you have described Sir, and I thank you for offering me this choice."

The DNI nodded with a smile, saying. "It is no more than what you have earned Agent Walker!"

He then transferred his attention to Casey. "Major Casey, we have also shown you the same disrespect of proceeding down this path without asking whether it is your choice, so I hereby ask you, do you wish to be transferred into the Human Intersect Project under the terms discussed, or do you choose to stay attached to the NSA in your current capacity? Your orders are slightly different in that the other group that you are currently assigned to is also coming under the same umbrella."

Casey also drew himself up. "I also choose to be transferred to the Human Intersect Project, thank you Sir."

The DNI nodded and then turned back to Graham. "Are you prepared to sign the document to accept the President's orders Director, or must I have General Beckman sign to witness your refusal as I have said? I must warn you that if I am forced to send people into the CIA to action these orders without your cooperation the type of people I will have to use are quite likely to go in boots and all, so it will almost certainly cause considerable damage to the CIA structure and the CIA could well lose key people and systems in the process."

Graham grabbed a pen and angrily signed the three copies of the document before throwing it down, whereupon the DNI calmly picked up the pen and signed the documents as well, passing them to Diane in turn for her signature. He then picked up one copy of the document and extended it to Graham, saying. "This is your copy Director, and your presence here is no longer required, given that this is a meeting for the Human Intersect Project. You will be formally advised, along with the other agencies, of the parameters, terms and requirements for engaging the Human Intersect team once they have been formally documented."

The document wasn't quite snatched from him as Graham gritted out "Sir. General." before he stalked out of the office, not quite slamming the door.

* * *

The DNI relaxed with a small smile then and said. "I must admit that I enjoyed that, Director Graham likes to throw his weight around much too much for my liking."

He turned to look at the screen. "Agents, I think that it's only fair to fill you in on the rest of what we have planned for the Human Intersect team."

He glanced at Di and she nodded for him to continue. "As well as yourselves and Mister Bartowski, we are also planning to add representatives of the DEA, FBI and DIA, though we have not identified suitable Agents from those agencies as yet."

He stopped when Sarah suddenly brightened at that. "Do you have any suggestions in regard to that Agent Walker?"

Sarah hesitated and glanced at Casey. "I do know and trust two exceptional agents in the DEA and the FBI Sir, but Major Casey may not be comfortable working with one of them…."

Casey gave her a suspicious look as the DNI asked. "Who are these agents Agent Walker?"

"Carina Miller of the DEA and Zondra Rizzo of the FBI sir, I worked with them for two years as part of a very successful multi agency team, the CAT Squad."

They heard Casey mutter something like "Oh hell no!" while Di snorted. The DNI raised an eyebrow at her and she whispered. "Prague, sir."

The DNI tried, with little success, to stifle his own snort as he then remembered the infamous picture of the Major, handcuffed naked to a bed, that had been doing the rounds of the intelligence communities for a while.

He schooled his expression and asked. "Do you have any objections to working with either if these agents Major?"

Casey gritted out. "No sir."

The DNI nodded and looked at Diane. "General, do you believe that these agents would be suitable for the Human Intersect Project?"

Di nodded. "Yes sir, as Agent Walker said the CAT Squad was very successful and achieved quite a lot in the two years that they were together. They were unfortunately sabotaged by the fourth member of their team, another CIA agent who was in fact a traitor. After she was killed in a trap she was attempting to set for the other members of her team, the team was arbitrarily disbanded, even though many members of the international intelligence community argued for it to be allowed to continue on the basis of the significant achievements of Agents Walker, Miller and Rizzo. And more to the point sir, we need to be able to have complete trust in anyone that we bring into the team for something as critical as the Human Intersect Project. Agent Walker has a history with these two agents and I am prepared to trust her judgement in regard to them."

The DNI nodded. "I would suggest that you approach these agents with Agent Walker to determine whether they would be interested in joining the Human Intersect team on the same terms as Agent Walker and Major Casey then General. Do any of you know any DIA Agents who are suitable to consider as the last member of the team?"

John was fairly certain that he knew who they would have had in mind for that. "Actually yes, Sir... Major Robin Cunnings of the DCS has been working with our team since Ninety Nine and I have every confidence in her integrity and ability."

The DNI looked at Di. "Do you concur with Major Casey's assessment of Major Cunnings General?"

"Yes Sir, I was only waiting to see how things went in this meeting before I raised the matter of making Major Cunnings the DIA representative on the team."

He nodded to Di and the screen, saying. "Very well, I will leave you to make the necessary arrangements General."

After a round of 'Thank you sir's, he picked up his copy of the Presidential Order for Sarah's transfer and departed.

* * *

Di looked at the screen "John, _can_ you work with Carina Miller? I happen to agree with Sarah, she and Zondra Rizzo are both exceptional agents, and we aren't likely to find anyone else of their calibre who we could trust the same way."

"Yes Ma'am, as long as we can keep Miller away from any handcuffs."

Sarah piped up at that point. "Her story was that you said some very unkind things that hurt her feelings, and that was why she left you like that Casey. And there's always the fact that you had to already be in that bed, naked, to get handcuffed and have your picture taken that way."

"Alright! It wasn't _all_ her fault, but she didn't have to send that damned picture to _everyone_!"

"In Carina's defence Casey, my understanding is that she _didn't_ , she sent only it to a few friends, like me, but then it somehow went, what do they call it, viral?"

Di tried to get the discussion back on track. "John, I'd like a serious answer please, are you able to put that behind you and work with Carina Miller?"

"Yes Ma'am."

She nodded. "Sarah, do you think that you can set it up for us to sit down and talk to them?"

Sarah nodded. "Yes Ma'am."

Di went on. "Okay, even though we have a controlled group now…."

She stopped abruptly when Sarah suddenly held out her hand with a panicked look, and dug out and held up her bugged CIA phone.

Di's lips thinned angrily but she nodded, wondering how the hell that had slipped her mind? Once she had control of herself she went on.

"I'm sorry Agents, I've just been sent a reminder that I'm due in another meeting, as we went over the time allotted for this meeting due to those other issues. We will have to pick this up again in our next meeting, I'll leave you to proceed with settling into the arrangements that we've discussed, goodbye."

She cut the link and sat down, only just resisting the urge to pick something up and throw it across the room.

* * *

In the FBI office, Casey held his hand out for the phone and Sarah handed it over as they headed out of the room. In the lift foyer he started talking "Stop bitching Walker, you know how damned slow these lifts are, it'll be much quicker to take the stairs" as he pushed the door to the stairwell open. As he got to the top of the stairs he cried out "Look out Walker, your phone!" and then tapped it on the hand rail before carefully dropping it down the centre of the void in the stairwell. When it hit the floor at the bottom, it shattered quite spectacularly and they grinned at each other, even though it took them a while to find and pick up even the major pieces. They weren't too worried if they missed some pieces, once they'd confirmed that they had the SIM and SD card, and that any batteries had been separated from the rest.

Back at El Castillo, Sarah held up the FBI evidence bag that held remains of her phone with a grin and said "My phone had a ackident!" and Anna burst out laughing. "That looks like John's work!"

That made Sarah look at him and ask "Do this often, do you Casey?" but he just shrugged "It's the quickest way to deal with something like that."

Chuck came out of his office as he said that and laughed, taking Sarah's hand to lead her to the elevator. Casey went with them as he wanted answers about what had been set up, and he knew that Chuck would have been the one who was behind it.

After Sarah chose the phone she wanted, Chuck confirmed that the SIM was a legitimate one (IE: Not interfered with in any way by the CIA) and put it into the new phone, along with a fresh micro-SD card, then he started transferring her contacts and other data from the phone and SD card over. As he did this, he told them about what he'd done to build the case to show what a fragile little flower he was, and how another betrayal would almost certainly render the human intersect permanently inoperable.

When Sarah asked when he'd had the time to do all this he just shrugged, saying that he'd been working on it when she was asleep the first night and between jobs yesterday and last night. That reminded her to ask another question. "Why was a four star General calling you two by your first names anyway Chuck? That implies quite a bit of familiarity!"

"Well for a start, we _have_ worked with General Stanfield quite a bit over the last ten years or so, but in the field he normally calls us Mowgli and Baloo. We had quite a few covert urban engagements back in the post Nine Eleven operations however and found that that was attracting too much attention, so he asked us what our names were. Having people hear our surnames would have been a no no, so in urban situations like that the General calls us Charles and John. Everyone in that room knew he was a General so it wasn't giving anything away to address him by his title."

Sarah just shook her head at the matter of fact way he said that.

When Casey argued that they could get set up quicker if they just used the Dungeon, rather than waiting for a whole new bunker to be built for this team, Chuck reminded him that they were bound to be forced to work with other agents at some point, so they'd need to have an official 'Human Intersect' base that outsiders could see and access. Reaching over to bring up the building plans on another screen, he added that Casey's role in Cinders Security was being set up to handle any walk in business so there would be a small dedicated reception area attached to his office, and the official access to the Human Intersect base below would be via his office, adding that they'd be using the same contractors who did the initial work on El Castillo, so they wouldn't have a problem quickly knocking up a bunker that used the existing slab floor, outside walls and the roof of the basement but looked totally stand alone.

Chuck also pointed out that, for the time being at least, they'd have to go with the accommodation arrangements that had been described in the meeting, adding with a hopeful look "With one possible exception?" Sarah smiled eagerly and nodded at that, leaning across to kiss him. The way he just smiled and nodded when Casey said that they had leads on the DEA, FBI and DIA agents that he wanted for the group told them that he'd set it up that way, though Sarah would be asking him later how he'd known about Carina and Zondra.

While they talked, he went through all the CIA add-ons in the remains of Sarah's phone, finding that luckily the activated bugs hadn't been transmitting real-time or recording timestamps, so he was able to doctor what was stored in the flash storage to remove the recordings from just before Graham left, until the point where John started talking in the lift foyer, making it look like physical damage had taken out the storage locations for everything in between. He also deleted all of Sarah's private contacts and any records of private communications, adding more physical damage to explain some of that too. When the phone had been securely scrubbed of anything that they didn't want the CIA to see or hear, Sarah boxed the remains up and dropped them off at the unofficial (and illegal) station that the CIA were maintaining in Los Feliz with a note to say that it had fallen out of her bag as they were going down the stairs in the FBI building, as that would be supported by the final recording and the story they gave when they asked for an evidence bag to put the remains into.

* * *

When they sat down to talk through things properly though, they had to concede that the argument that Auntie Di had used against Graham meant that separate accommodation _would_ have to be arranged for Sarah, but she suddenly smiled. "Actually, Auntie Di made an offer about that in the meeting and I think I'll take her up on it, I'll be sharing with you Casey!"

Chuck grinned at that but Casey looked pissed. "Oh calm down Casey! I won't _actually_ be staying with you, not most of the time anyway, it will just be my official residence! Who'd be stupid or crazy enough to try and get into an apartment that _you're_ in living to check whether I'm actually staying there or not? For that matter, I'd be rather surprised if anyone could get into this building without an invitation, as I'm willing to bet that it's more secure than most secure government facilities?"

That was enough to get smiles from both John and Chuck, thinking about the fun they'd have if anyone _was_ stupid enough to try that.

Now that she had a clean and secure phone, Sarah called Carina and Zondra and asked whether they were in the States now? Zondra was, but Carina wasn't getting back for a few more days, so she made arrangements for the three of them to meet for dinner in DC the night Carina got back. She sent a note to Auntie Di to get her to clear her calendar for that night.

After that, they went upstairs to get her set up as an employee of Piranha Security & Technology while Casey went off to talk to Phoebe and Charly at the house. The family laughed when they thought about how that would go, because while they'd met before, John had never dealt with either of the women professionally. John wasn't a macho man at all, but Auntie Phoebe was six foot two and didn't take prisoners, and Auntie Charly was helping Auntie Phoebe get the new business set up because she was the one who ran Quadling Security. Auntie Charly was _only_ six foot but she was even tougher than Auntie Phoebe. Yep, this would be a test for John, but Ellie pointed out that he'd worked with Mom and Auntie Di had been his boss for over seventeen years, so he should be used to being put in his place by women.

They called Auntie Di and told her what the official living arrangements were going to be so she could make them a matter of record. Chuck had already sent the plans for the new Cinders Security premises layout and the Human Intersect bunker through, and Auntie Di told them when the contractors would be coming so that Auntie Phoebe and John could ensure that they were there to meet them and agree the business and 'other' requirements. Chuck called that through to John straight away, while Sarah went to collect her things from the hotel and check out, dropping the CIA phone off in Los Feliz on the way.

The next couple of days were largely spent with Sarah and John getting settled into El Castillo and their cover jobs, Sarah working with Chuck, Anna, Lou and the others and John working with Phoebe and her security team. John recognised half of them when he was introduced to the team, and that gave them an opening to explain that most of them were ex spec-ops and intelligence operatives who'd joined them after they were burned by the organisations they worked for without going into detail.

* * *

 **A/N: 'Auntie' Sue Lee was Nancy Kwan, Uncle Buck is Clint Walker, look up the movie Cleopatra Jones to see Auntie Phoebe and the Long Kiss Goodnight for Auntie Charly, Marco is Dolph and Mike Colt is 'Mr Colt'. Bai Lee is Tia Carrere, the Diane Norwood name she used in the FBI is from Hollow Point (96), Zoe is from Firefly and I shouldn't have to tell you who Rocky is, but if I do, add a 'D' to his first name and take the 'y' off his nickname. ;^)  
**


	8. Human Intersect Team

**Some of the details are changed to fit into a slight change of direction, they're mostly aircraft related.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale.**

* * *

This was the first time Sarah had ever been to the house in Arcadia, and she knew that her Mama was up to something when she insisted that Chuck show her the bunker. She'd never seen Chuck anything like angry with Mama before, so she knew that there had to be something in there that he didn't want her to see. Using the closet in one of the guest rooms in the basement to get into the bunkers was interesting, as was seeing that they had bunkers that together would be regarded as enormous by most standards... they had a full operations centre and facilities for a large team in there, including another armoury that most of the special operations guys she'd come to know would give their right arms to get access to, though it was much smaller than the one in the dungeon.

She knew her Charlie though, so when he started excitedly showing her what they had there, she turned and headed straight for the part he _wasn't_ showing her, the 'wall'.

Knowing that she'd ignore everything else once she started looking at Charlie's section, she made herself look at the others' first, but there were questions to be answered up front because there was a section reserved for _her_ there! It had Samara Liisa Burdon's birth certificate, along with a few others, most notably Samantha Lisa Larouche, who was born over two years before her and had both US and Cayman Islands citizenship. When she demanded to know what that was about, Chuck just told her that the plan had always been to get her back with the family where she belonged so they set up IDs for her along with the rest of the family so that her identities would be well established in the system. The names and ages could be adjusted when she returned to them, but they wanted everything to go into the system at about the same time as their's did so that it was obvious that she was part of the family, and they'd aligned her ID's ages to his IDs' for the most part. Sarah kissed him for that and went back to looking at the others' displays.

Uncle Stefan had some impressive degrees and achievements back when she was little and before, but there wasn't much for him in the last eighteen years other than some patents listed in the name of Stephen Hunter.

It _was_ interesting to read the orders sending Marjan Zaleska to America in the late Sixties as Mary Conrad, and she wasn't too surprised to see that she'd topped most of her courses at university and the Farm. She was also amused to see the certificates for all the records she'd taken off Auntie Mary at the Farm. Auntie Mary's Distinguished Intelligence Cross and other CIA medals reminded her of her own and she made a note to get them and her other paperwork from Aunt Jane while she was in DC. She was impressed by the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star and other military medals, but she'd heard enough to know that Auntie Mary did a lot of special operations missions, and being Frost she'd be hell on wheels. Seeing that Auntie Mary was a Colonel in the Army, Marines and Air Force and Captain in the Navy was a surprise, as were her Air Force Command Pilot and Army Master Aviator badges and all her aircraft certifications, especially the foreign aircraft certifications, though the Naval Aviator badge next to them was less of a surprise after she saw them, as were the Army & Air Force Master Parachutist and Master Freefall Parachutist badges with combat jump devices and Navy & Marine Parachutist badge, and the combat, combat diving and marksmanship badges.

Uncle Bry didn't have the degrees Auntie Mary had, and his ranks across the services were a level below her's, except for being a full Colonel in the Army. She did note that he'd received the Intelligence Star, along with the Distinguished Service cross twice and Navy Cross once, Silver Star three times and a lot more medals and was an Air Force Command Pilot and Army Master Aviator, though he didn't have anything like the aircraft certifications Auntie Mary did. As expected, he had the same Army & Air Force Master Parachutist and Master Freefall Parachutist badges with combat jump devices and Navy & Marine Parachutist badge, combat action, combat diving and marksmanship badges as Auntie Mary.

Casey's record looked much like Uncle Bry's, as far as degrees, ranks and badges went, but he was a Colonel in the Marines instead of the Army... As Alex Coburn? He obviously didn't have any CIA medals but he _did_ have more military medals than Uncle Bry from the cross level down. He was also an Air Force Senior Pilot, Army Senior Aviator and Naval Aviator and his aircraft certifications were far more impressive than Auntie Mary's, Uncle Bry's or her's, he had a lot more foreign aircraft certifications as well. The certificates he had for speed over distance record runs were interesting, but she didn't delve too deeply into them because she knew that she'd give in to the temptation of looking at Chuck's, as he was listed on them too.

Mama, Jeff, Lou and Skip had some impressive degrees and military ranks across the services, but they didn't have anywhere near as much in medals, and their combat medals were limited to the Air Force Combat Action Medals they all had, though they also had Navy Combat Action Ribbons and Army Combat Action Badges (so even as the non-combatants of the group, they'd all been under fire at times, and returned fire too). Their campaign and service medals and ribbons also showed that they'd been in a lot of the same places she'd been and she knew what it was like there, so they hadn't had it easy. They were also all listed as Air Force Pilots, Army Aviators and Naval Aviators with the same type of business jet and other fixed and rotary wing transport and utility aircraft certification as she did, though there were a few foreign aircraft in there too... plus most of the Airbuses, the F-106 and F-16 for some reason.

Sarah lingered at her mother's section of the wall for a while, because she was reading the citations for her grandfather's Medal of Honor and promotion to Captain, which had both been awarded posthumously for the actions that led to his death soon after America entered the Vietnam War. Mama had always told her that her granddaddy had been a hero, but she hadn't been old enough to explain this to before her father took her away.

Anna's records were more impressive, because she had better degrees and higher ranks (except for Mama), and she had two Silver Stars and a Bronze Star among her medals, as well as being an Air Force Senior Pilot, Army Senior Aviator and Naval Aviator who some impressive aircraft certifications, both American and foreign. She also had special operations training certificates that were impressive.

Auntie Sue and Bai's displays were quite similar to Anna's, which considering what Auntie Sue had taught them when she was little wasn't that much of a surprise. There was no explanation for why Bai's promising FBI career had finished so abruptly in Ninety Two though.

Rick was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army, his degrees weren't anything like Anna's, but they were solid. He had two Silver Stars and three Bronze Stars among his medals and was an Air Force Pilot, Army Aviator and Naval Aviator with more serious fixed and rotary wing aircraft certifications than her's, including foreign aircraft. He was also a Ranger and had other impressive special operations qualifications too.

Rocky was a full Colonel in the Army, like his little brother his degrees couldn't compare to the family's brainiacs but they were solid. He had a Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars and two Bronze Stars among his medals and he was _also_ an Air Force Pilot, Army Aviator and Naval Aviator with serious fixed and rotary wing aircraft certifications, including foreign aircraft. He'd also been in the Rangers and Special Forces and had similar special operations qualifications to his little brother.

Sam's record was much the same as Rocky's, just in the Marines rather than the Army, and Gypsy and Robin's looked much like Anna's without the technical degrees or Stanford MBA.

It was when she went to Ellie's section that things got really interesting, because her degrees were far more impressive than anyone else's and her military ranks were mostly at the same level as Auntie Mary's, except for one that Charlie was _definitely_ going to explain! _Especially_ because she could see more that required explanation over in his section! She stopped herself charging straight over to demand answers, because she was a professional who gathered all the intel before she acted.

Ellie's medals were mostly non-combat, though she did have three Silver Stars and two Bronze Stars, so she'd obviously seen quite a bit of serious action too, but she was an Air Force Command Pilot, Army Master Aviator, and Naval Aviator, and her aircraft certifications were far more impressive than anyone else's, except that Casey came close on foreign aircraft certifications. The certificates from the Air Force and Navy Test Pilot Schools raised questions, but not as much as the pictures and certificate to say that she'd flown an SR-71 up to Mach 3.36 in February 1999 (she glanced over at Charlie's section then, because she _knew_ that she'd find another SR-71 certificate there, but she made herself finish going through Ellie's first). Chuck had explained her certificate and trident badge to say that she'd qualified as a Navy SEAL but he hadn't even mentioned the rest of it. Ellie didn't have the combat jump devices Auntie Mary, Uncle Bry and Casey did on her Parachutist badges or the combat badges, but she had most of the rest, this was one hell of a family she was marrying into…..

* * *

Sarah stopped in shock at that… where the fuck had _THAT_ come from? She'd only been back a few days and she and Charlie hadn't discussed anything like that! When she thought about it, she decided that it was Ellie's fault, from the way she'd been talking when she was trying to make sure nothing got in the way of her and Charlie's life together…. Yeah! That was it! It was just Ellie projecting the fact that she wanted them to be sisters, nothing else! She could hear that voice in the back of her head though… _'_ **Lying bitch** _! Ellie didn't say anything that you haven't been holding in your heart ever since your useless father dragged you away from Charlie!_ **'My Charlie'** _, does_ **that** _sound familiar? It damned well should! because you were thinking it when you turned around and made a beeline for the spot you_ **knew** _he was trying to steer you away from because that man's every trait is etched into your very being! Or how about the fact that you were trying to work out a way around the argument why you couldn't jump into his bed from the moment it was pointed out because there was no way you were going to sleep anywhere but in_ **his** _arms? Suurrreeee, you and Charlie together is_ **Ellie's** _idea, not what you've been thinking about every day for the last eighteen years!'_ … Fuck, she wasn't about to come out and admit it, not even to herself! but she knew that that nagging bitch in the back of her head was right, there was no way she was going let anything separate her from Charlie _ever_ again!

She shook her head as she headed over to the place that Chuck had really been trying to keep her away from, _his_ section of the wall of fame. It was no surprise that it was more impressive than everyone else's and that he had all of Ellie's flying qualifications and more, like the Air Force and Navy Air Warfare as well as Test Pilot school certificates, but seeing those medal _and_ rank flags up there sure was…. He _definitely_ had some explaining to do! As expected, she found the certificate to say that he'd pushed that SR-71 even harder than Ellie had, getting it up to Mach 3.56…. and she didn't know why she was surprised to see another certificate to say that it was _him_ who took that MiG-25PD up to Mach 3.42 in 2002. She froze again and kicked herself, of course! That MiG-25 flight in October 2002 must have been _his_ Twenty First present, from Auntie Di obviously, she couldn't think of anyone else who could have organised that, while the SR-71 flight in Ninety Nine was _Ellie's_ Twenty First present.…. Damn! Her Aunt knew how to organise epic Twenty First presents! He also had other certificates for sustained high speed records, one was with the MiG-25 and another with Casey from just the day before which was in an F-5F for some reason, but it seemed that he'd had to get to the Middle East in a hurry fairly often post Nine Eleven as that one before the MiG and the ones with Casey weren't the only ones. His Navy SEAL certificate was expected, as were most of the medals and badges…. she noted that he'd done more combat jumps than Auntie Mary, more than anyone but Casey actually as they both had gold stars on their Master Parachutist _and_ Master Freefall Parachutist badges, he had even more, and more impressive, aircraft certifications than Ellie, especially the foreign aircraft certifications. Yep, her guy was impressive alright, he'd crammed one hell of a lot into the time that they'd been apart and the fact that he didn't want her to see this was proof that inside, he was still the same Charlie…...

* * *

When she'd taken it all in, she went across to where Chuck was pretending to be busy and put her arms around him. "Did you _really_ think that you could distract me enough to keep me from seeing what Mama wanted me to see?"

He didn't turn around. "No, but I just wish she'd mind her own damned business… I love Auntie Em but she _knows_ that I keep them hidden down here where no-one can see them for a reason!"

"You _know_ that I have to ask about that Medal of Honor, and those flag ranks, don't you _Admiral_?... And while you're at it, you can tell me about those Twenty First presents you and Ellie got from Auntie Di and why you didn't tell me that my grandfather had been a Medal of Honor holder too!"

He did turn around then and sighed as he pulled her into his lap. "Yeah…. that's part of the reason I didn't want you to see them…. Because I didn't want to go into all that... OK, your grandfather's Medal of Honor and the Twenty First presents are the shortest stories so we may as well get them out of the way first..."

"For a start, I felt it was Auntie Em's place to tell you about his Medal of Honor, but I guess she's still upset about it. You see Auntie Em and Auntie Di only found out about the Medal of Honor when they were going through your grandmother's documents after she died late last year. She never responded to the letter from the Army at the end the war requesting formal confirmation that he was in fact the same deceased US Army First Lieutenant Peter Burdon she'd listed as the father on her daughter's birth certificate, because he'd been awarded the Medal of Honor and promoted to Captain posthumously for his actions in the incident where he was killed at the start of the Vietnam War. Your grandmother had buckled to the Beckman family's pressure to bury anything and everything to do with the father of her first child to ensure that nothing ever came out that would make _them_ look bad or cause them any embarrassment so Auntie Em didn't find out that he had been awarded the Medal of Honor until nearly fifty years after he died. That was nothing new though, she wouldn't stand up to them and insist that Auntie Em's name be changed to Beckman when Auntie Em begged her to either... Though I must admit that I'm less upset about _that_ because if they hadn't treated Auntie Em like crap she probably wouldn't have ended up where she did and you mightn't have been born, and that would have been a tragedy in my book! Anyway, it took one hell of a lot of work to get the Army to release the medal, citations and flag to Auntie Em after all that time, because it had been the prize exhibit in their hall of fallen heroes ever since the Vietnam War, but luckily the Spectre group has a lot of pull so we managed in the end. Auntie Em had a good cry and then put the medal and all the citations up on her part of the wall so _we_ can honour him for the hero that he was, and so you could see them when you came home..."

"That's not all though, you see your grandfather was a Soviet sleeper too. He'd been a war orphan and child soldier in Poland in World War Two where he was blowing up German military installations with home made bombs he'd created. He did enough damage to the Germans to be awarded the Hero of Soviet Union and Order of Lenin medals at the age of nine when the war ended and the NKGB took him back to Russia to train him to be the next generation of Soviet spy in the predecessor of the spy camps that Mom and Uncle Roan and Auntie Charly were raised in..."

"Sorry... it was hard to find the right moment to tell you that half the people you know as family had been KGB sleepers... Or a Chinese sleeper in Auntie Sue's case. Anyway, your Grandad was brilliant so he was sent over here to MIT to get into our nuclear program and feed what we were doing back to the Soviet Union but ROTC participation was pretty much mandatory back then and his exceptional abilities as a soldier meant that he ended up as a Special Forces officer. He met your Grandma through someone she knew in the ROTC program and we presume that they fell in love... we _do_ know that they got engaged before he was sent to Vietnam and she never got a chance to tell him that she was pregnant with Auntie Em before he died so that wasn't why they got engaged, but your Grandad had earned the highest awards for bravery from both the Soviet Union and United States by the time he died a hero at the age of twenty two..."

He went back to the story to try and distract her from crying.

"Anyway... Ellie's Twenty First... Neither of us saw that coming, we'd qualified on all the Blackbird simulations at Test Pilot School because, well because it was the Blackbird! But we never thought that we'd ever get the chance to actually _fly_ one! When Ellie realised what she'd organised, she begged Auntie Di to get me a flight too, but Auntie Di knew her and had already set it up that way, and it was _amazing_! The MiG for my Twenty First... Well Auntie Di had apparently been looking for something to make mine memorable too when a Libyan Mig Twenty Five pilot flew it to Israel to defect. The Israelis didn't want it, in fact they wanted it out of there before anyone started asking questions about how he'd managed to land a Mig Twenty Five so easily on what was supposedly just a service road through an agricultural kibbutz and solar farm, especially as that solar farm was owned by an American concern, so they asked us to get it out of there, and someone in the Air Force's top brass decided that it would make a nice addition to Air Force Museum."

"Auntie Di used the Spectre group's pull to get orders cut for the MiG to be _flown_ home, and as the only U.S. Air Force pilot with much familiarity with those types of Soviet aircraft _and_ a good knowledge of both Cyrillic and Arabic, it wasn't hard to get me assigned to be the pilot. They flew some of our people over to strip it down for an extended flight and convert the in-flight refuelling equipment, radios, transponders, oxygen systems etc to be compatible with our Air Force equipment, and then I was given orders to fly to Israel with all possible speed and thrown into a supersonic jet with John. That wasn't anything unusual after Nine Eleven, and nor was the destination because it's _us_ who own that solar farm... The US Army Engineers had helped the IDF level a small valley just outside Eilat and build an airbase there after the Six Day War in the late sixties so that Sac could use it as the base for a secret refuelling wing for our B Fifty Twos and Hustlers. After Peace Talks in the late Seventies though, having an airbase right on the border was viewed as being too confrontational so it had to be closed, a new Airbase was built at Ovda and the IDF moved there. The valley was turned into an agricultural kibbutz, using the two runways through the valley as the main roads servicing the farms. The Air Force had solar desalination and solar power plants which had enough capacity to provide for the base, the kibbutz and the growing city of Eilat built at the top of the valley to help cover up the facility's real purpose, and extended the underground hangars to accommodate the tanker wing and interceptor squadron they were basing there at the same time. They had people stationed there to run and maintain the solar plants and maintain and manage the runways and aircraft, but they decided to pull out after the Soviet Union fell and the Disarmament Treaties were signed in Ninety Two. We knew through Mom, Uncle Roan and Jack and Auntie Di and Charly's connections in the Israeli intelligence community that the Israelis were unhappy about the US just pulling out and leaving them in the lurch like that, so we proposed that _we_ take over running and maintaining the desalination and power facilities _and_ the runways... as Emerald City... when the Air Force pulled out so we could use it as a staging facility, because we were doing a fair few operations in the Middle East and Central Asia by then, and it improved our group's standing with the Israelis too... We had to invest Ten Million or so to acquire and modernise the facilities, but it's quite profitable now with the income the solar energy and other research is generating... Lou's brothers have been in charge at Emerald City since Oh One but we have other people handing the day to day operational issues because they're mainly running the research side... So when the Mig's pilot put it down on the first straight stretch of road he saw that looked big enough to land on because he was out of fuel, he actually landed on one of _our_ runways! But the kicker was that when I landed, I was told that we'd set a new record, covering over eighty three hundred miles in just over seven hours, that I was to fly the MiG Twenty Five back to the States, _and_ that so long as I was able to land it at Wright Patterson in one piece afterwards, I was authorised to push the Mig to its absolute limits. There was no way I was going say no to that, so I landed at Wright Patterson a little over four and a half hours later with eight in-flight refuellings, two burnt out engines because there's a fundamental flaw in that engine design which starts a runaway reaction when the airflow gets up around Mach Three, another speed over distance record and a certificate to say that I'd gotten the MiG up to Mach Three Point Four Two. It was a hell of a lot rougher ride than the Blackbird was but it was still one hell of a rush!"

"As for our ranks and my Medal of Honor... They've been setting that up since Nine Eleven at least, because Ellie and I were made Captains and Anna was made a Commander in the Navy and Auntie Em and Mom were made Colonels in the Air Force in December Oh One, when we started really expanding the Spectre group…. Auntie Di had some grand plan for us but she wouldn't tell me or Ellie what it was... Anyway, John, Sam, Rick, Rocky and I were dropped back into Afghanistan with the Ranger Recon guys in July Oh Four, but we ended up having to fight our way out of the region because critical intel had been withheld from us so we weren't prepared for what we'd find there. It was just another messy mission because of missing intel from what I could see…. I had been averaging four missions a month since Nine Eleven, mostly with John, and all too many of them ended up with us having a fight to get out in one piece. I didn't really think about it again afterwards, until we were all called to D.C. at the beginning of May Oh Five and we were told that we were required to attend in dress uniforms with full medals….."

"We knew that they were up to something when we were taken to the White House and Uncle Roan was waiting with Auntie Di when we we got there, but the fact that Mom and Auntie Em had brought the girls, Kim, Alex, Josie, Benjie, Lexie and Katy along had already given that away, so I wasn't too surprised to see that we were led straight into the Oval Office. They had the new DNI there, along with the Secretaries of State, Defense, Army, Navy and Air Force, the SOCOM and STRATCOM Commanders, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Chief of the Navy, Chief of Staff of the Air Force and Army, Commandant of the Marine Corps, the Directors of the NSA and FBI were also there and a few other military heavy hitters... The only notable heavy hitter missing was the Director of the CIA, but we were quite happy about _that_. They'd obviously waited until after the Director of National Intelligence had been sworn in for this, anyway it was pretty crowded in there…..."

"The President started with some big spiel about how I'd saved the whole Recon unit with my acts of incredible bravery and exemplary leadership, and awarded me the Medal of Honor. John and Sam were both awarded the Navy Cross... the second for John... and promoted to full Colonel in the Marines by the Commandant of the Marine Corps, while Rocky got his second Silver Star and was promoted to full Colonel in the Army and Rick was also awarded his Second Silver Star and promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in the Army by the Chief of Staff of the Army. But that wasn't it... because then the President started in on another spiel about how the Spectre group had been at the forefront in all aspects of the War Against Terror from the very start and that his military and intelligence advisors had been recommending that they be given the authority to act more independently, and therefore effectively."

"Ellie was called up and promoted to Rear Admiral Lower Half Eleanora Hunter to command the Information Dominance side of this group that was so secret that even their own superiors didn't know who or how many people were in it, that got a laugh but I was really happy for Ellie as she never got the recognition that she deserved, because people always seemed to focus on the more spectacular missions we were doing rather than all the important work that she and Auntie Em did…. But then _I_ was called up and promoted Rear Admiral Lower Half Charles Carmichael to command the Operations side of the Spectre group, which to me took away from the recognition that Ellie had just been given…. Especially when the Chief of the Navy made a joke about the fact that she'd been the Navy's youngest Admiral in over a century for a few minutes anyway. Anna was also called up to be promoted to Navy Captain Anna Wang."

"Auntie Di was called up then and promoted to Major General in the Air Force, because she had to be at least one grade above those in her command. She was also presented with our fourth Army and Navy and Marine Corps and second Air Force Presidential Unit Citations for the Spectre group. We had all the required photo opportunities, but everyone in the family except for Auntie Di had our call signs on our name tags instead of our names so that our names didn't get out. Having the girls there helped sell the fact that I was supposed to be over ten years older than I was, because who would believe that I'd have teenage daughters at my age?"

Sarah just looked at him and he smiled. "It was fun watching Lou and Anna's reactions when the President asked me where the girls' mother was and I told him that she was with someone else now. They stopped asking those questions after John and Uncle Bry gave them the same answer, but I'm sure Auntie Em could have handled them.… you see Josie was standing with Auntie Em, Viv, Katy and Lexie because Auntie Di and Uncle Roan _aren't_ a very well kept secret in Washington, so him being there wasn't too much of a surprise, but having a teenage girl with him would have told everyone just who's daughter she was."

"Once the dog and pony show was over we headed back home. Ellie and I were expecting to get the story of what this was all about from Auntie Di when we got out of there, but we didn't! She just gave us a pile of crap about how the President and his military and intelligence advisors had wanted to reward us for everything we'd done to progress the War Against Terror. I'm sure that Mom and Auntie Em at least know what she's up to, but they won't tell us either and it's pissing off Ellie and me."

He finally turned around to look at her and she went up on tiptoe to kiss him, then snuggled into his chest. They stood there for a while like that and then she looked up pensively. "I'm sure that it's just the way Auntie Di and Auntie Mary have to keep everything a secret Charlie. You know the way they are, I think they'd make what they make what they ate for breakfast a national security matter if they could."

He snorted at that and kissed her again, but then she found out why he'd been so angry when he saw the displays, because he walked over to a keypad on the wall and punched in a series of codes that made the smart glass in front of each person's section of the wall go opaque in turn, so Mama must have come down to set it up to display everything before they got there. He got that the kiss she gave him before they went back upstairs was an apology for that.

* * *

Sarah couldn't understand _why_ her Mama had made a point of making sure she saw everything in the bunker. It wouldn't have been the fact that she had been included in the family from the start, knowing Charlie and the rest of the family she should have expected that. There was the issue of Grandad's Medal of Honor, but there were other ways to tell her that. Surely Mama didn't think that she needed to be convinced how incredible Charlie was, or any of them for that matter? She decided to find out, so she told Chuck and John she'd see them at the office later, because she wanted to catch up with Mama.

Once Chuck and John were out of the way, she sat Mama down and asked her straight out what the point of all that had been. Emma smiled sadly. "You're back with the family again now Honey, and I know for a fact that your Auntie Di is going to make sure that you're a big part of what we do…. I can see that you and Chuck still feel the same way about each other, and so can your Auntie Di. She's been setting up Chuck and Ellie to head up this Intelligence and Special Operations group she's been working with the military and the President to build ever since Nine Eleven showed everyone what they could do, but when she saw how you and Chuck fitted together, and how incredible _you've_ become, she started changing those plans…."

She looked very hesitant about what she was about to say. "Honey… Have you thought about marrying Chuck? Because I know that your Auntie Di is going to be pushing the two of you in that direction… Wait! Before you explode, there's something you need to know! Auntie Mary was actually the one who brought this up because she used it to protect herself from being sent on seduction missions when she fell in love with Uncle Stefan, you see the CIA and most of the other agencies have left the old rules about married women on their books because most people have never known about them and they thought that trying to make changes would just draw attention to them. Those rules were written back in the Forties and Fifties when the sanctity of marriage was held to be important, and they state that married women can't be forced to do seduction missions or to do anything overly sexual with their partners either, because it was against the laws of the time. We know that what Chuck set up is protecting you, but as your Auntie Di said, Graham and those other bastards are determined, so the more layers of protection we can stack up to stop them the better."

She stopped then because Sarah was shaking her head. "I didn't know about those rules Mama... they _are_ something to think about, but you better believe that I'll be having words with Auntie Di for trying to interfere with our relationship like that!... But Mama….. I _have_ thought about marrying Chuck, in fact I was just giving myself a good talking to downstairs for blaming Ellie when the thought that I was marrying into one hell of a family popped into my head! I'd never thought about it in those specific terms before, but as my nagging conscience pointed out, I've spent the last eighteen years thinking about getting back to Charlie and spending the rest of our lives together!….. But I _also_ know that as pissed as I am about the idea of Auntie Di interfering with our relationship, Chuck's going to be twice as pissed, because he's already pissed at her, and you, and everyone else for refusing to tell him and Ellie about what this game you're playing is!"

When her Mama looked guilty when she said that, Sarah knew. "Oh no! _Ellie_ is in on this too?"

"She wasn't…. not until you came back and Di started changing her plans because of that. She came clean to Ellie then because she felt guilty about reducing her role in the grand plan. You see Di was going to step down and have Ellie and Chuck take over as the joint commanders of the group, but what she's planning _now_ is for Chuck to take over from her as Commander, and have _you_ and Ellie as the two Deputy Commanders, with you taking over command the Operations side of the group from Chuck. Ellie wasn't too upset about that because she could see the logic of it, so she's on board now."

"Why won't Auntie Di tell him the truth Mama?"

"Because he'll refuse it if we give him an out! You saw how he reacted when I made him take you down there, and I'm sure that it was like pulling teeth to get him to tell you anything about what you saw down there. Everyone _except_ Chuck knows that he's the one who needs to take the reins, so we're trying to coax him into accepting that….."

She stopped then because the glare her daughter was directing at her was a truly frightening thing.

"And you want _me_ to help you convince my husband to be of this?"

Emma didn't think that it would be prudent, _or_ safe, to point out to her what she'd just said, so she just shook her head.

"Not so much help convince him as help him see what everyone else sees…. Including you I think?"

That got a grudging nod from her daughter. "Yes, I can see the logic of it but I'm _not_ happy about playing him like this! He deserves to know what the family is setting him up for!"

Emma could see that the danger was past now, so she pulled Sarah into her arms. "Yes, he does Honey, but that boy of our's is just so stubborn!"

Sarah started then. " _That's_ how Auntie Di got total control of the Human Intersect Project! Graham walked into that briefing certain that he'd have control of the project because he was the one with all the power, so he was totally blind sided when Auntie Di wiped the floor with him…. but she just took what Chuck put together to the DNI and he and the President signed off on it because she'd been working with them all along."

"It wouldn't have worked if Chuck hadn't worked miracles to put everything together and present a bullet proof case overnight like he did…. But yes Honey, our on-going operation was what gave Auntie Di the access to the DNI she needed to pull it off this way."

It was obvious that she and Di hadn't been forgiven yet, but Emma relaxed because she could see that Sarah was mostly accepting this. After asking her to tell Auntie Di that she wanted to talk to her, Sarah kissed her mother goodbye and headed back to El Castillo.

* * *

There was another thing that she and Chuck were upset about, the fact that she had to go to DC for a day or two to talk to Carina and Zondra with Auntie Di, they'd just gotten back together after eighteen years, they didn't want to be separated again!

Di was trying to avoid the talk that her niece was demanding, so when Graham gave her an opportunity to put it off a little longer, she grabbed it. While they'd locked down the _Human_ Intersect operation quite nicely, Graham was still the joint Director of the original Intersect Project, so she was formally advised that they wanted to run tests on the Human Intersect. _Officially_ , this was to try and find ways of improving the operation of the Human Intersect Program, but in reality it was just Graham attempting to find a way to identify a viable candidate for _his_ Human Intersect Project (and probably sabotage Chuck if he could). Be that as it may, it gave them an excuse to bring all three of them to DC and it was easy to mandate that his two handlers would be accompanying him _everywhere_. The fact that this would help mask the original reason for Sarah being in DC was a bonus, as was the fact that they could bring Marco and the others who were joining Cinders back to LA with them (and _they_ could provide extra additional hidden security while they were in DC in case Graham had managed to identify Di's on the books agents).

* * *

This meant that the day Sarah was meeting Carina and Zondra, they headed to El Monte first thing in the morning. Of course they had to explain to Sarah just how they came to have their own rather large hangars at El Monte Airport, along with the stubby little airliner in Emerald Air livery they were on at the moment plus two more like it, planes that looked like a Gulfstream G Two and Dassault Falcon Twenty but weren't, another single engine twin tail prop plane she didn't recognise and at least four helicopters that looked like Lakotas but weren't in the hangars. Once they were in the air Chuck started the explanation.

"For a start... no, Emerald Air _isn't_ a new version of Air America or its Russian equivalent, it's us... I'll explain how that came about as we go... As I told you, in a way you were the root cause for all this, because a couple of weeks after Uncle Joe took you away, Auntie Em went looking for you. That lmade Mom, Auntie Di, Uncle Bry and all Mom, Auntie Di and Auntie Em's friends get together to work out how to find you and Auntie Em, and after Mom was trapped in Russia with Volkoff and Dad loading the program that was frying his brain to try and get free to find her, look after all of us as well. Auntie Charly was... is... the most practical and organised one in the group, and she had pointed out that to do that they'd need to create their own equivalent of what the governments had... with all the safe houses, bases, support teams, intelligence resources, transport and everything else it took to get the job done, _and_ that while Auntie Di and Uncle Roan, Uncle Bry and Uncle Jack may be safe enough for the moment, most of them had been burned by their governments so they'd need to keep everything off the radar and stay in the shadows, so they'd need to hide what they were doing behind a network of businesses. Auntie Di was pissed when the others all went along with what she called Auntie Charly's crazy suggestion that they call it the Cinders Corporation though..."

Sarah looked confused at that so he explained. "Her argument was that they may as well just call themselves 'The Burned' as that wouldn't be any more obvious, but it appears that what Uncle Roan said about the people running the spy world not having have enough imagination to make the connection when he stepped in to mediate was right, because we've never seen any evidence of searches related to that in the nearly eighteen years since we started... Auntie Di tried turn the joke back on them by naming her group the Special Projects and Tactical Research group, or Spectre for short, but..."

He shook his head and laughed when she looked even more confused. "We _really_ need to address your chronic lack of education in the classic spy stories Sweetie!... Anyway, Uncle Bry brought in a couple of buddies of his to help get the transport side of things sorted out, Uncle Hank for aircraft and Uncle Mike for the marine transport. But the thing was, Uncle Hank and Uncle Mike were even smarter and more resourceful than Uncle Bry knew because it was them who showed the group how to get the bases, infrastructure, aircraft and vessels they needed to make all this work. You'll meet them soon enough because Uncle Hank is with Auntie Charly now and Uncle Mike is up in San Francisco most of the time..."

"Mom, Uncle Bry, Roan and Jack, Auntie Di, Pheobe, Charly and the others who'd been successful agents all had money tucked away in hidden escape funds in case things got too hot for them and we've been building on that by cleaning out the targets when we took them down ever since we started, so it wasn't hard to dig up Ten or Twenty Million whenever we needed to buy something... And when all those airlines were going bankrupt in the late eighties and early Nineties and their assets were being sold off dirt cheap, we were picking up airliner and maintenance hangars, planes and operating certificates around the world... Uncle Roan did the heavy lifting at the airline bankruptcy auctions and the like over the next year or two to get things set up for us. He had Uncle Hank and Auntie Charly telling him what to go for but he was the one who talked Southwest into selling him the old TranStar headquarters and maintenance hub at Houston Hobby Airport for peanuts to cut their losses because they weren't serving Houston Hobby any more and grabbed all the rights for Emerald Air's company and branding, along with all their remaining operating certificates and three DC Nine Fourteens for One and a Half Million, then sold the planes off for a profit in December Eighty Nine... which gave the group a base to operate from that was off the radar and a legitimate airline to buy and run everything as for next to nothing... And while he was in Texas he had fun using the proof that they were guilty of massive fraud to blackmail the owners of Braniff International into legally signing over their sixteen Airbus A Three Twenties for the Ten Million _they'd_ paid for them in their own bankruptcy proceedings."

"Before he did that, they had staged a series of massive _gas main_ explosions under a strip of houses in Arcadia where the residents were getting worried and frustrated about the fact that they had constantly smelling gas which indicated bad gas leaks but the gas company was refusing to do anything about it to give them the excuse to acquire and start completely rebuilding the properties to add the bunkers and everything else for our base. They also made a deal with Los Angeles County and the FAA to take over a stalled major redevelopment project for the El Monte Airport area, which expanded the airport and extended the runway to nearly six thousand feet, using strict noise restrictions to get it accepted by the local community. That deal made them the owners and managers of the airport, so we can do pretty much anything we want at El Monte. The reason we have El Monte as well as Los Alamitos is that while El Monte's only five or ten minutes away from the houses and El Castillo, we can't operate our bigger planes or military aircraft out of there."

"To help with the noise restrictions at El Monte, under Uncle Hank's instructions Uncle Roan snapped up Presidential Airways' eight Smiliners... BAE One Forty Six regional airliners... when they went bust and five more from Discovery Airways when the DOT shut them down in early Ninety... and another thirty six Smiliner variants from US Airways and Dan Air in Ninety One, all up they cost us about Twenty Five Million... We've got over a hundred and fifty of the Smiliners so far because we've picked up another hundred odd since then, and we're still picking up and upgrading any decent ones we find going cheap enough... The reason we have so many of them is that they are very quiet, have good capacity and speed, can operate out of short unpaved airfields and have enough range to fly nonstop across the country with the improvements that Uncle Hank makes to them, so they're very handy planes... They mainly concentrated on Airbus A Three Twenties for the other airliner acquisitions because Uncle Hank decided that the new Airbuses would meet our needs best and argued that we were better sticking with as few different types as possible to make it easier for our pilots and maintenance crews, and A Three Hundred Six Hundreds for bigger planes, though we swapped to A Three Thirties for the big planes after they came out because they've got pretty much the same cockpits and controls as the A Three Twenties and longer range."

"Anyway... Auntie Di got the Spectre group established in January Ninety, and with Uncle Mike's help she had the Tipton Army Airfield near Fort Meade in Maryland and a large plot of land in the then Los Alamitos Armed Forces Reserve Center allocated to them with all the necessary access rights. Tipton Field and the land and rights at Los Alamitos were immediately sold off to the Spectre group's new defence contractor Emerald City to build, maintain and operate our facilities there. That cost us about Ten Million to set up but it gave us facilities in Los Alamitos and Tipton Field that can't be taken off of us, and Tipton Field is the official Headquarters of the Special Projects and Tactical Research Group. They did much the same thing to get our facilities on Mare Island and Moffett Field up in San Francisco, Dyer Island in Maine, Isla Culebra in Puerto Rico, Amchitka, which is an island halfway between Alaska and Kamchatka, Mageshima in Japan, Al Sawda in Oman, Keflavik in Iceland and Weymouth South in Boston, they've cost us over Twenty Million between them but they're all our's now. We spent another Ten Million or so getting ourselves set up in the Cayman Islands in Ninety as well, including building our own hangar facilities at Owen Roberts Airport to get our planes out of sight there, but we try to keep our operations away from the Caymans because that's our main bolt hole and where we keep our money..."

"As soon as the Spectre Group was created, Uncle Hank gave Auntie Di the information she needed to get eight Little Birds, three C Elevens, three C One Thirty Three Bs, two C One Forty One Bs, eight TAV Eight As, twelve F One Oh Six Bs, a KC One Thirty Five A, an Antonov AN Twelve, Ilyushin IL Seventy Six, Agusta A One Oh Nine C and Mil MI Seventeen which he'd modified for the Air Force and which had disappeared after they were loaned to the CIA reassigned from the AMARC to the Spectre Group and shipped down to Houston Hobby so he could start rebuilding them into what we wanted... And he got the last fourteen Six Bs from them later that year."

"Uncle Roan really played everyone at Eastern's bankruptcy auction in early Ninety when he picked up their headquarters and maintenance hubs in Miami and San Juan and most of its facilities at other airports, along with the six A Three Hundred Six Hundred Rs they were operating out of San Juan and all its operating certificates for the States, Canada, England, the Caribbean, Bahamas and Central and South America for about Eighteen Million. The ones from the regular airlines were only interested in what they could make quick money off so they didn't bother bidding against him for the operating certificates and we got them for peanuts, and much like he did with with Emerald, he had talked down their supposedly tired old facilities and the _ancient_ Airbuses they had serving the South American routes so much that he didn't get much of a fight for them either... By the time everyone else realised that the old A Three Hundreds were the last items being presented for sale and he'd actually snagged the newest A Three Hundreds in the fleet, Auntie Charly had paid up and sealed the deal. That gave us seventy six aircraft, ten major and a number of minor bases and access to Central and South America for the group's operations down there... because they were raiding the drug cartels to get funds to set up Cinders Corporation... and bolt holes as well if we needed them by June Ninety."

"Aunty Charly and Uncle Hank realised at the Eastern auction that legitimately acquiring airlines' operating certificates, planes and facilities was our best way to get access to countries, so the group started looking further a field, picking up a few airlines in Europe, and in October they found out that the East German flag carrier Interflug, which had operating rights for most of Europe, the Eastern Bloc, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Cuba, was being liquidated by the German government, so they got their friends in Germany to initiate negotiations for them to acquire Interflug's company rights and operating certificates. These negotiations dragged on for six months but in April Ninety One they signed an agreement to acquire Interflug and all its operating certificates, along with the Interflug headquarters and maintenance facilities at Berlin Schönefeld Airport and Santa Maria Island Airport, plus facilities at sixteen other airports around the world and three IL Eighty Six KD, six TU One Fifty Four KM Two and six Yak Forty Two KM Two planes for Twenty Five Million US. The new boss of the Treuhandanstalt was determined to make herself look good by getting Interflug off their books quickly, so she told them that they would _only_ get the rights to the company and Interflug's operating certificates if they bought the rest of Interflug's aircraft and facilities too, and basically made them an offer they couldn't refuse. They knew from the ex Interflug air and maintenance crews they'd hired that the planes alone were worth several times that because they were special long range Combi versions with the latest Airbus cockpits and controls that had been custom made for Interflug in Eighty Nine, so they sealed the deal then and there... They'd started looking for the ex Interflug staff who flew and maintained those planes when they started negotiating to get Interflug and when they found them, most of the technical staff turned out to be ex Soviet Air Force, through them they acquired other pilots and mechanics from the Sixteenth Air Army, as well as members of the Third Guards Spetsnaz Brigade and Thirty Fifth Guards Airborne Assault Brigade, who were German and didn't like the idea of doing the Russians' dirty work for them. They had more of the Third and Thirty Fifth Guards come across after they were used to put down opposition to the pro-Russian government in the Tajik Civil War. Most of the Thirty Fifth Guardsmen over there were from the Central Steppe and after Afghanistan and Tajikistan they'd had it with being used by the Russians to slaughter their own people, we got more from the Third Guards after they were used in the First Chechan War. Three or four hundred of our people were in the Third and Thirty Fifth Guards and a lot of our pilots and aircraft mechanics were in the Soviet Air Army forces in East Germany too. We're still getting people contacting the ones they used to serve with to ask if they can come across too, and most of the time we agree once we've checked them out..."

"Later in Ninety One, Uncle Roan picked up Midway's headquarters and maintenance facility at Midway International and some of its facilities at other airports for a Million at their bankruptcy auction, but he couldn't stop crowing about the expression on Carl Icahn's face when he was trying to work out how the hell he'd missed the winning bid which snatched Pan Am Express right out from under his nose in the last seconds of their bankruptcy auction a couple of weeks later, because that auction had been specifically set up for _Icahn_ to get Pan Am Express! We'd acquired the entire airline and all its operating rights and assets, everything except for the Pan Am name, for about Eighteen Million all up. We hung onto Pan Am Express' operating certificates here and in Europe, Canada and the Bahamas, their headquarters and maintenance hubs at Northeast Philadelphia and Berlin Tegel, most of the facilities they had at other airports and what turned out to be another four Airbus A Three Hundred Six Hundred Rs in Berlin, but sold off all their other planes, routes, passenger facilities and everything else. He also picked up the Mexican airline La Tur's four A Three Twenties and two A Three Hundred Six Hundred Rs for Twelve Million... at least we tried to help the Eastern, Midway and Pan Am Express employees we didn't keep on find other jobs and rehired some of the ex Interflug people, I doubt that others picking over the bones would have bothered with that... So by the end of Ninety One, between the airlines, the AMARC, El Monte, Tipton Field, Los Alamitos, Mare island, Keflavik, Isla Culebra, Dyer Island, Amchitka, Mageshima, Al Sawda and the Caymans, we'd acquired fifteen major and about three dozen minor facilities, a hundred and fifty nine aircraft and access to most of the States, Canada, Cuba, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, Central and South America, Europe, the Eastern Bloc, the Middle East, Africa and Asia for around a Hundred and Twenty Million all up... a Hundred and Seventy if you include the Tomcats. Needless to say, they'd spent more than they were planning to at the start, but we'd gotten far more too."

* * *

"Those planes we picked up in Ninety and Ninety One have served us well, they were the only planes we had for a couple of years and we operate most of them and our other planes... except the Six Bs and Harriers of course... under the Emerald Air banner because no-one pays any attention to regional airliners or cargo planes flying into the local airport. We've kept Emerald Air working as a cargo and passenger charter airline and wet lease company around the world because that helps make people ignore the planes when we're using them for other things, and it covers the operating costs too... And as you know, we also provide a freelance extraction service for a fee to operatives who know how to contact us... We added long range tanks to all of the planes when we got them, and we've upgraded the engines and made other improvements to most of them as well..."

She'd been waiting for him to explain the Delta Darts and Harriers, but he obviously wasn't going to so she asked... "Why the hell do you have twenty six Delta Darts and eight Harriers Chuck?"

"Their crews call them Sixes, not Delta Darts, but the original reason for getting them was to meet the commitment the US Government made to Iceland in the Fifties, that was part of the price of getting Keflavik. You see our politicians had committed to providing air defence for Iceland to get Iceland to let us maintain bases there, but the Secretary of Defense and the Air Force were planning to renege on that agreement and remove the four interceptors and their air and maintenance crews that were based at Keflavik when the cold war finished... Strategic Air Command were still holding a grudge about the Icelanders refusing to let them base a refuelling facility for the B Fifty Twos and Hustlers there in the Sixties, that's why they had to help the Israelis build the airbase at Eilat... so they made sure that Keflavik was on the 1988 BRAC list. The agreement called for at least four interceptors to be based there at all times for Iceland's Air Defense and Uncle Hank had a buddy in the Air Force who could get him what he needed to turn the Six Bs into much improved Mach Two Point Seven Plus aircraft, so he got the best twelve Six Bs they had at the AMARC allocated to us and most of them became the new Iceland Air Defence interceptors when the Air Force pulled out in late Ninety One. It was going to be all of them but the Spectre group took off so fast that Auntie Di had to relocate to DC in early Ninety One to deal with the military and intelligence bodies who were engaging us, because she was having several meetings a day by then. She was upset that that was taking her away from Josie, so we allocated one of them to Tipton Field for her, and when we stopped to think about we allocated three more to Los Alamitos, Mare Island and Houston Hobby for emergencies. The fact that Auntie Di was living at Tipton Field up until Two Thousand and Two made it easy to use the Sixes to fly her back and forth between Tipton Field and Los Alamitos and that gave her four or five hours more with Josie each time she came over, which she was doing at least twice a week. In Ninety Two, Ellie started studying at Harvard by distance learning, but she still had to attend some sessions and exams and such, so we were using the Sixes for that as well, and me too when I started at MIT. They haven't been as used much since we got the Sonics in Ninety Six, but they were doing at least ten thousand air miles a week on average for the first five years so they served us well... So well that we got the last fourteen Six Bs at the AMARC allocated to us to save them from being scrapped and fixed them up the same way. The Harriers... well Uncle Hank saw eight good Harrier trainers there and decided that they could be useful things to have with our group, they've all been upgraded to Eight B Plus Harrier Twos with a few extra twists now. "

"Anyway, the cost of maintaining all those facilities around the world adds up to quite a bit, but the Emerald Air cover business uses them and they also give us access to the cities where we need to operate and a place to store our aircraft and vehicles. Our main facilities get a lot of use though, because most of the Quadling Security operations are being run out of the Red Mountain and the Emerald Air facilities in Houston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Berlin, Miami, Mare Island, Los Alamitos, Al Sawda, Isla Culebra and Mageshima, though the Emerald Air in Berlin is actually operating under Emerald Air GmbH..."

He stopped then because Sarah had started to ask something else. "Why the separate company and base in Berlin Chuck?"

"Well for a start, we won the contract to build and operate the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport. In Ninety Six they called for bids for the construction and operation of the new airport and as a major tenant at Berlin Schönefeld we got to see the submissions, what we saw was totally impractical and would have screwed up our operations from the Airport, so we submitted our own bid. You see, when we got Interflug, we discovered that we couldn't use the operating certificates of a German airline unless we were a German company, so we changed Interflug's name to Emerald Air GmbH, set up in Interflug's old headquarters and with a bit of work managed to get the German government to officially accept that Emerald Air GmbH was Interflug reborn and therefore a legitimate German concern. That meant we could operate out of Germany and maintain and use all of Pan Am Express' European operating rights, as well as Interflug and Eastern's operating rights around the world, as Emerald Air... We're using Interflug's IATA and ICOA codes and logo for Emerald Air to leverage its history as a major international airline but our callsign is Firebird..."

Sarah looked a little confused at that. "It's a reference to the phoenix rising from the ashes, which is what Cinders was intended to symbolise... and we've changed the colour scheme to mainly silver and green to fit the Emerald name, but with the Interflug logo in red on the tail to keep the link to Interflug, and because it fits into the firebird theme too. Anyway, that was working okay, we were running Emerald Air and Quadling Security for that part of the world out of Berlin and using the ex Interflug facilities at Berlin Schönefeld as our base of operations for Europe and the ex Soviet Bloc countries, then the plans to outsource the construction and operation of the new airport came out and we could see how that would screw up our operations. Amaland Construction is an actual construction company, they partnered with Green Construction to build our original base in Arcadia, did a lot of the work to rebuild El Monte Airport, rebuilt El Castillo and have done just about all the repairs and construction on our bases. Most of them are ex or reserve Seabees because it was Pops, a retired Seabee Commander, who put the team together, but we've got engineers from all the services, anyway we had Amaland and Green Construction to build the airport and other people with the business sense and backgrounds to make it work in our group and we'd been running six major international corporations and a significant government operation, plus Santa Maria Island and El Monte Airports and seven other military airport facilities... they're much smaller than Berlin Brandenburg but the basic principles are the same... since Ninety, so we submitted a bid. There was a round of appeals because of the questionable basis the contract was first awarded on in Ninety Eight, but it was eventually awarded to us in Two Thousand and Two, and Berlin Brandenburg Airport was completed and officially opened in May this year."

"We've been buying up airlines around the world that were shut down or went bankrupt to get their airport facilities, operating certificates, planes and helicopters... we've bought another thirty five airlines since then. We keep what we want and sell off everything else, we've actually made a profit more often than not. We mainly keep planes that have reasonable performance and range and can handle shorter and rougher airstrips, so aside from the Smiliners and Airbuses a lot of our fleet is ex Soviet aircraft, we've got a fair few IL Eighty Sixes, TU One Fifty Four Ms, Yak Forty Two Ds, and quite a few Yak Forty Ks, IL Seventy Sixes and AN Twelves. Most of our transport helicopters are ex Soviet as well, Mil MI Eights, Seventeens, Sixes and Twenty Sixes, though we have Super Pumas and Merlins as well. Most of the TU One Fifty Fours and Yak Forties and Forty Twos have gotten the M Two twin engine conversion, the Yak Forties have been lengthened by twenty feet and most of the planes have been lightened and made into combi cargo planes if they weren't already... with extra tanks and more powerful and efficient engines. We've got world wide coverage now through those acquisitions, but we're still keeping an eye out for what else may come up."

"We got a couple of hangars at Moffett Field transferred to us in early Ninety too, because we had another facility over on Mare Island and we initially needed somewhere that we could fly into and switch to helicopters or cars to get there, and did the same in South Weymouth Naval Air Station for when Ellie and I had to fly to Boston when we were doing degrees at Harvard and MIT, but Weymouth's been shut down and is being redeveloped. We legally sold all of them off to our defence contractor Emerald City to ensure that no-one would be able to pull strings to get them reallocated. The NASA administrators made us jump through all sorts of hoops by forcing us to remove and properly dispose of every spec of contaminated material from the hangars at Moffett Field after they took over, hoping that we'd just give up and move out, but that actually played into our hands because it gave us the impetus and excuse we needed to completely demolish and rebuild them and add the bunkers and everything else we wanted to put in in the process. They couldn't work out why we weren't getting pissed off about being made to spend another Million or so rebuilding the hangars, it actually cost a lot more than that but we got what we wanted out of it..." He held up his hand to stop the question she started to ask. "We built a proper facility there to give us a second base of operations in San Francisco that we can fly straight into, and because it also gives us access to the facilities of the Ames Research Centre next door for some of our other projects. It also came in very handy when Anna and I were going to Stanford less than ten miles away."

"Anyway, when they started working on this at the end of Eighty Nine, Uncle Mike told them how to work the military allotment system and pointed out that with the Base Realignment and Closure operation going on, they had a good chance to get whatever facilities they needed transferred to them if they were on the base closure lists. Tipton Field was an Army Airfield up near Fort Meade that was put on the Eighty Eight list even though they'd spent a fortune expanding the base and facilities and upgrading and extending the runways so that it had two six thousand foot runways suitable for jet transports less than seven years before. Dyer Island, Al Sawda, Amchitka, Isla Culebra and Mageshima were all Navy air and sea facilities on islands off the coast of Maine, Oman, Puerto Rico and Japan and halfway between Alaska and Kamchatka that the Navy was using through World War Two and the Cold War. Moffett Field and Weymouth South are hangars on what used to be Naval Air Stations, Mare Island was the Supply and Repair Facility in what used to be the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, plus the Mare Island Naval Air Station..." He put his hand up to stop her again. "As I said, we _initially_ had to use Moffett Field because we had to clean up the Mare Island Air Facility and make sure its runways were sound, and we kept it because the NASA administrators pissed us off and it's useful to have a base on either side of San Francisco, it was _very_ useful when we were going to university less than ten miles away... and Keflavik was a Naval Search and Rescue Facility and Naval Air Station near Keflavik in Iceland."

"In early Ninety Three, Auntie Di used the fact that the Army really wanted to get Uncle Hank, he's officially Army Aviation Master Warrant Officer Henry Higgins, back to restart the development of an effective stealth helicopter to get the Stealth Helicopter Program turned over to the Spectre group, because she saw a lot of political mileage in our being the ones who delivered something like that. Ellie, Auntie Em, Auntie Charly, Uncle Jack, Uncle Roan and I had been managing all the money and holdings we stripped from the targets we took down to shut down the operations they were part of, _and_ most of our operations since early Ninety One, and I had a far better working relationship with Uncle Hank than she did, so Auntie Di tried to get me to do everything to set up and manage the Stealth Helicopter Project. I took it on, because it was something I wanted to work with Uncle Hank on anyway, but Uncle Hank and I were sick of Auntie Di trying to play us like that, so I set everything up and then gave her an ultimatum... I'd only do this if _I_ had total control of the operation and she dealt with us like any other defence contractor. She was desperate for this to succeed because she'd made some rash promises to get it turned over to the Spectre group as she was sure that Uncle Hank and I _could_ deliver it, so after a lot of bitching and moaning she agreed. We needed somewhere to do the development for that, but thanks to Uncle Hank we knew that there was a secret underground Cold War strategic airbase hidden away in the Nevada Test Site that had been unused since the Disarmament Treaty was signed the previous year and that it had been costing the Air Force well over a Ten Million Dollars a month to try and _keep_ it a secret in the eight months since they closed it. So through Auntie Di we got the Air Force to sell the Red Mountain Strategic Airbase and the Red Mountain Combat Staging and Delivery Training Facility they built above ground to hide its existence off to our defence contractor Emerald City for a Hundred and Ten Million and set up there. We've developed effective stealth helicopters alright, but the hidebound idiots on the panels overseeing the Army Helicopter Improvement Program have rejected every submission we've made. Each time we addressed their objections they made up new ones..."

* * *

"Anyway, our main bases are at the Red Mountain Facility in Nevada, the Emerald City facilities in Tipton Field, Los Alamitos, Mare Island, Santa Maria Island, Houston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, Isla Culebra, Dyer Island, Al Sawda, Amchitka, Mageshima, Keflavik, Berlin, the Emerald City facility just outside Eilat and Emerald Tower in Crystal City between Ronald Reagan Airport and the Pentagon. We bought the Crystal Park Four building off US Airways when they filed for bankruptcy at the end of Two thousand and One, we also picked up extra hangars to expand our facilities at Ronald Reagan cheap because a lot of companies were pulling out due to the extra restrictions imposed post Nine Eleven so we're one of the airport's major tenants now. We renamed the building Emerald Tower and it's nominally the new headquarters for Emerald Air, but we converted the top floors to apartments and allocated a few floors to offices for the Spectre group, which had a massive expansion post Nine Eleven, that's where Auntie Di lives now. Our facilities at Red mountain, Emerald City, El Monte Airport, Los Alamitos, Moffett Field, Tipton Field, Mare Island, Dyer Island, Al Sawda, Isla Culebra, Mageshima and Keflavik are owned by Emerald City, while Emerald Tower and all of our civilian airport properties except El Monte are under Emerald Air's name."

"Okay, I get that you have hangar _s_ where most of your people are based, but from what you're saying, you have one hell of a lot more aircraft than this and the rest of what I saw in the hangars back at El Monte?"

* * *

Chuck groaned to himself, because he knew he was going to have a _lot_ of explaining to do. "Yeah... Okay, well as you saw, we have this and the other Smiliner and the J Fifty, J Thirty, P Thirty, two H Thirties, H Fifty and H Seventy are normally in El Monte. The main airport facilities are the home bases for most of the airliners and cargo planes, the Mini Guppies, Boris, most of the Seventies, Fifties and Thirties, the P Fifties and Thirties, H Nineties, Seventies, Fifties and Thirties..."

He stopped at that point to ask her to save her questions until he'd told her everything when she went to jump in, Sarah obviously wasn't happy with that but she tersely nodded her acceptance and he went on.

"We keep one of the H Seventies, a Smiliner and a J Thirty at Ronald Reagan for Auntie Di and her crew there. Then we have Ricky, Rocky and Roxy at El Castillo... And there's another J Ninety, a couple more of the J Seventies and a few more of the J Fifties and Thirties, P Fifties and Thirties, H Nineties, Seventies, Fifties and Thirties, plus our original Yak Forty and Challenger Six Hundred, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Bertha, Andre, Sally, Newt, Mickey, Minnie, Spike, Mina, Albert, Homer, Bart, Nelson, the Guppy and most of the military planes and helicopters spread around at Red Mountain and our other military bases, with most of the Sonics and Shadows at Red Mountain and eight of the Sixes at Keflavik..."

He jumped in to cut off the questions she was about to ask.

"Okay, so why do we have so many aircraft? Well for a start, as I said, we acquired a hundred and fifty nine aircraft between all our airline purchases and what we got out of the AMARC over Ninety and Ninety One... We acquired another two hundred and twenty six military with the Red Mountain Facility in early Ninety Three and picked up one of the early Challenger Six Hundreds they made with the big cargo door for Fedex on an operation in Ninety Four, and we took a private Yak Forty K with extra fuel tanks to get out of Belarus after a mission in Ninety Five and kept that too... Then there were the other planes and helicopters we got from the airlines and another twenty three planes and thirty six helicopters from a big military auction in Mexico that we busted in late Ninety Six, where we took everything they had..."

Anna interrupted from the cockpit at that point, as she was obviously listening. "And the _Samara and Liisa_ , don't forget to tell her about the _Samara and Liisa_ Chuck!"

That got him a look and he had to explain. "They had most of the aircraft, along with the boats, LSVs and weapons they were selling at that auction on two ships, the Burya, which was the refurbished French Ouragan class landing craft transport the Orage, and the Leningrad, which was originally the Russian large landing ship the Ivan Rogov. The quickest and easiest way to get everything they were trying to sell away from there was to take the ships and everything on them. I could see potential in them with a few changes too, so I decided to keep them and had them registered under one of my corporate entities as the Bai and the Liisa out of the Caymans. The Liisa in particular was rather nicely done up so I was using it as one of my corporate yachts, as well as a working freighter, though the Liisa's registration has been changed over to a converted Anchorage class landing dock ship now. And when we started all this we acquired six converted Soviet Tarantul corvettes, they didn't fit as working boats so we registered them as the corporate yachts of our six corporations, the Samara is the Carmichael Corporation's and therefore _my_ primary yacht."

 _That_ took the wind out of her sails. "You named your ships after me?"

He nodded. "Like everyone's been telling you, there hasn't been a day that I wasn't thinking of you, so they were the first names that came to mind. I made arrangements to quickly buy the Aleksandr Nikolayev and Ouragan off the Russian and French Navies along with the smaller Ilya Azarov and Bougainville, have them cleaned up enough to look like the Liisa and Robin, make sure they were seen around European waters enough convince anyone who saw the Liisa or Robin that they were the ex Aleksandr Nikolayev and Ouragan and then brought back to the States. The plan was to scrap them to cover the trail for the Liisa and the Robin but the ones who sailed them back said they were too good to do that to, so we did them up, rebuilt them into a semi flat tops like the Liisa and Robin and registered them as the Kathleen and Alexis... the Ilya Azarov and Bougainville were registered as the Emma and Su..."

"We try and make sure that they aren't seen together to throw off anyone who may still be trying to trace the Burya or Leningrad... Anyway, like I said, that auction was big... They had a J Ninety, four of the J Seventies and six each of the Super Tigers, J Fifties, J Thirties, H Nineties, H Seventies, H Fifties and H Thirties. There were also twelve improved SOC Riverine boats and six improved Mark Five SOC boats, three dozen odd advanced Light Strike Vehicles and airborne combat vehicles, and a mountain of advanced weapons and munitions. The aircraft were pirated and much improved versions of an AN One Twenty Four slash IL Eighty Six cross, the F Five G Tigershark, Yak Forty Two M Two, Bombardier Challenger Six Hundred and Dassault Falcon Twenty jets, and Mil MI Thirty Eight, HAL Dhruv and Eurocopter EC One Forty Five and One Thirty Five helicopters and they were called Super Tigers, Super Jets and Super Hummingbirds, aside from the J Ninety which we call Tweedledee and the Super Tigers and Sabre Tooths that we named after Sonic the Hedgehog and Shadow the Hedgehog, we just use the last letter and the number to identify them. We couldn't understand how they could have gotten their hands on all of this, not until we found out who was behind it..."

" _Who_ was behind it Chuck, you've mentioned that a couple of times now."

"Alexei Volkoff."

She stared at him in shock. "You've taken Hundreds of Millions of Dollars worth of aircraft, guns and a ship off of Alexei Fucking _Volkoff_? Are you fucking _insane_?"

"Well according to his man there it was well over One and a Quarter Billion Dollars' worth, but I think it was more like Eight or Nine Hundred Million all up, and we didn't _know_ that it was him at the time, we were just winging it after we got there and were caught flat footed by how big it was. That being said, Ellie and I _were_ quite pleased with ourselves when we found out who it was, because we've wanted to kill that bastard ever since we found out what he did to Mom. We might not have killed him, but we _did_ hit him where it hurts..."

* * *

 **A/N: Yes, I'm quite aware that in our world, no-one stole Pan Am Express out from under Mr Icahn, and that he may not be as bad as he's portrayed in the media, but this _isn't_ our world. The same goes for the Naval facilities which either didn't exist in our world (as far as you know ;^) or were different.  
**


	9. History of the World Part One

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. Again, there will probably be more changes as I find things I don't like during the final proof reading.  
**

* * *

"Then in early Two Thousand and Three we were in Russia on a mission and I had a lead on a facility that Volkoff had set up in a box, a closed facility which had previously been a military air base, near Rostov An Don not far from there, so we went to check it out. Mom and Ellie came with us on that one because they wanted to be in on anything that involved striking back at Volkoff. One of guys on our team, Yuri Popov, had been an aeronautical engineer at Antonov up until he was forced to transfer to Mil just before the Soviet Union fell to get their proposed composite replacement for the MI Eight on track. We got Uncle Yuri and his family out in Ninety Five when he defected and he and Uncle Hank got on like a house on fire so we added him to the team... His daughter Ljuda joined full time as well when she finished her post grad degrees in aeronautical engineering at Caltech in Ninety Nine. Uncle Yuri and Uncle Hank came with us on that mission because between them, they know more about aircraft than just about anyone else, and this facility was the only one Volkoff had which seemed to be connected with aircraft in any way, so it had to be where they were working on their aircraft designs now. Many of the improvements they made to those planes and helicopters were frighteningly effective, so we wanted to see what else they were working on and put a stop to their development if we could..."

"Volkoff was working on expanding his weapons empire by cornering the market for cutting edge military aircraft. The approach he took was underhanded and brilliant, but that was just him all over. He stole proven designs that were close to what he wanted or used political pressure to force the framework of what he wanted to be developed, then canned the development and stole it. Once he had the core designs he used his own designers, most of whom had been the cream of the Soviet Aeronautics industry before be acquired them by whatever means, to modify the designs they had started with into what he wanted. Existing designs were changed to composite construction, the engines were all changed to the superior creations of his captive aircraft turbine engineer and he had first class fabrication teams building everything out of titanium, carbon fibre and kevlar. Anyway, there were more of the Super Tiger, Jet and Hummingbird prototypes at the facility, the propeller aircraft that we had been told at the auction were still having teething problems and the other two seat twin engine combat jet design based on the Sukhoi T Fifty that we'd also heard about at the auction... as well as two improved versions of Sukhoi's S Twenty One Supersonic transport design that had adopted parts of the T Fifty design so they've acquired the Fifty's twin tails with the three turboramjet nozzles in a line between the tails... three other heavy lift helicopters based on the Mil V Twelve design and all the facilities to build and develop them."

"Anyway, Uncle Yuri told us that most of the Propfan planes were designs that Antonov had been working on before the Russians pulled the plug on them. The Propfan Ninety was an updated version of the AN One Twenty Two concept, an enlarged twin engine wide body AN Twenty Two composite design that had the size and capacity of the original AN One Twenty Four but used big propfans and the AN Seventy's wing design to cruise higher and faster... By the way, the J Ninety has the cargo capacity and payload of the original Galaxy... The Propfan Seventy was the AN One Seventy One concept, an enlarged wide body twin engine AN Seventy composite design which had the AN Twenty Two's twin tails and close to the speed and payload of a C Seventeen with more capacity. Then there was the Propfan Fifty, which was Antonov's original concept for the AN Thirty Eight, it was roughly twice the size and capacity of the AN Twenty Eight, with better STOL capabilities, wings fifty percent bigger and two propfans, which gave it almost as much capacity and three quarters of the payload of a Hercules and the speed and range of the AN Seventy. The smallest propfan plane design was the Propfan Thirty, which was an extended single propfan composite variant of the AN Twenty Eight designed to be a faster and more economical STOL utility and light transport plane. They also had the AJs and APs, amphibious variants of the J Seventy, J Fifty, P Seventy and P Fifty designs, apparently the lead aircraft designer they had left after the military auction was from Beriev and he had a bent for amphibians... so he adapted the J Seventy, J Fifty, P Seventy and P Fifty designs to create the AJs and APs, they actually work quite well."

"The thing was, Uncle Yuri knew most of the key men on the design team there, because he'd worked with them when he was at Antonov and Mil. Two of them were aeronautical engineers, one was an engineer specialising in propfans and their related turbofans and turboshafts, though he also did an incredible job of creating a more powerful and efficient version of the J Fifty Eight Turboramjet that was used on the Blackbird, and three others were master fabricators of titanium and carbon fibre components. Most of these guys there were in an even worse position than Uncle Yuri had been, because they had all been kidnapped in the Nineties to build those prototypes and develop the designs further for Volkoff, and he was holding their families' safety over their heads to force them to work for him like he did to Mom. They'd been located at another airbase closer to Moscow originally, but they were apparently dragged out to this airbase that Volkoff had effectively made invisible after we took most of his prototypes and key engineers at that auction in Mexico. Volkoff probably thought that whoever hit his auction would be coming after his development facility for the rest of it... Which we would have, but by the time we managed to steal enough satellite time to track it down, it had been moved."

"Anyway, they were all for the idea when Uncle Yuri suggested that they defect like he did, but they were worried about their families until we promised to get them out and made arrangements to do it. They vouched for more than a few of the other ones working there and they came with us as well... We lucked out actually, because Mom knew the Commanders of the two Spetsrota of elite Spetsnaz guards and three of Spetnaz air and ship crews that Volkoff had posted there to protect his facility and operate the aircraft and ships and she talked them into changing sides and coming with us too. Most of the guards and air and ship crews were quite happy to follow their leaders on that, and they dealt with anyone who wasn't... So we sent teams to extract all the men's families before Volkoff could get to them and bring them back to the base while we were calling in the Nonestica, Coregos and Noroway..."

* * *

He broke off to explain when she gave him a questioning look. "The Nonestica, Coregos and Noroway are three of our other ships. As I said, Uncle Mike was brought in to do the same for our marine transports as Uncle Hank was doing for our aircraft. That other facility I mentioned in San Francisco was at the old Mare Island Naval Shipyard, they got the Supply and Repair Facility allocated to the Spectre group and then sold it off to our defense contractor Emerald City like they did with everything else. We got five Thomaston class landing dock ships that had been converted to CODLAG drive systems with Dyer Island, Amchitka, Al-Sawda, Mageshima and Isla Culebra and then Uncle Mike managed to get specific ships added to the dismantling contracts Gillikin Salvage got, the first three were the Thomaston landing dock ships Thomaston, Monticello and Spiegel Grove in Ninety and Ninety One. Uncle Mike and his team fixed them all up, converted them from steam to CODLAG drive systems and then they were registered to the company we'd created, Nonestic Shipping, and started doing cargo runs to out of the way places, they got another two Raleigh landing dock ships in Ninety Two and then in Ninety Three they got three Iwo Jimas. Uncle Mike and the others tried an idea I had that Auntie Di thought was crazy, fitting the stern of a Thomaston onto the Iwo Jima hull to make it into a proper amphibious assault ship, but it worked, so we got the rest of the Iwo Jimas as they were decommissioned and did the same with them..."

He broke off at that because Sarah almost shouted. "You did _WHAT?_ "

"Well strictly speaking, _I_ didn't do anything but suggest that most of the shortcomings of the Iwo Jimas could be fixed if they were combined with the Thomastons. The Iwo Jimas were quite sound and incredible ships, the only real drawbacks with them were the fact that they were steam powered, single screw and didn't have the capability to dock landing craft, which was a problem for our cargo business because even the MI Twenty Sixes can only lift about twenty long tons so any heavy cargo has to be moved by boat. Uncle Mike and the other engineers measured everything up and decided that it would work, so they cut up the worst of the Iwo Jimas and Thomastons and combined them, and it worked! Anyway, all the Iwo Jimas have been converted now... the Robin and Alexis and a few of the Austins and Anchorages have been converted to pseudo flat top dock ships as well."

"Just how many ships do you have Chuck? It sounds like you have a lot of them _too_."

He sighed, because he knew that this would be bound to get a reaction. "The Nonestic Shipping fleet is currently made up of one Bougainville, three Tapirs, seven De Soto Counties, two Ouragans, what's effectively two Thomastons, three Raleighs, two Ivan Rogovs, five Anchorages, three Austins, seven Nonesticas, three Wichitas and two Henry J. Kaisers... plus the Shreveport, Ogden and Saipan which are being converted to integrated electric Azipod drive systems at the moment. So yeah, most people would call that a lot."

"You've got _forty_ _three_ ships? And aren't most of those rather big?"

"The Bougainville and Tapirs are around three hundred and seventy feet, the De Soto Counties are around four hundred and fifty, the Ouragans five hundred, the Thomaston, Raleighs and Ivan Rogovs are all around five hundred and ten, the Anchorages five fifty, the Austins five seventy, the Nonesticas six hundred, the Wichitas six hundred and sixty, the Kaisers six hundred and eighty and the Saipan is eight hundred and twenty feet... And we also have another four Wichitas, six, three hundred foot Alatna and five, seven hundred foot Cimmaron oilers registered to Gillikin Salvage."

"So you've got _fifty eight_ fucking big amphibious warfare ships, aircraft carriers and tankers... Why do you have all those tankers?"

"Six of the Wichitas and the Alatnas came with Dyer Island, Keflavik, Isla Culebra, Amchitka, Mageshima and Al Salwa, and five Mispillion class oilers had been assigned to fuel duties at Mare Island when they were taken out of active service in the late Eighties. We picked up the last Wichita when it was decommissioned in Ninety Four because the others had proven quite useful and got the Cimmarons to replace the Mispillions when they were decommissioned in the late Nineties, because we could just transfer the updated integrated electric Azipod drive systems and other new systems straight from the World War Two era Mispillions to the twenty year old Cimmarons... and we acquired the Kaisers in the mid Nineties when their construction contracts were cancelled and completed them to get two more new tankers cheap. The Nonesticas are flat top cargo dock ships, not aircraft carriers, and we use most of the fleet as cargo ships and have the landing craft to deliver heavy cargo where there are no suitable docking facilities."

"Landing craft?"

"Yeah, we've got six LCU Sixteen Forty Sixes, eight dozen aluminium LCM Eights, eight French CTMs and twelve Russian Serna fast landing craft that have all been converted to diesel electric waterjet drive systems and we normally carry two LCM sized boats per ship to move heavy cargo to and from the ships... And all of the ships have been converted to diesel electric or integrated diesel and gas turbine electric Azipod drive systems. We also have sixteen LCT Fives and thirty two LCT Sixes that Mare Island made up to use as ferries for its civilian employees in the war. We got about half of them when we took over the Supply and Repair Facility and were given twenty five more that had been in storage when the Shipyard closed in Ninety Six... we've upgraded them to more powerful and efficient diesel electric drive systems to use them as ferries or whatever ourselves. We'd already converted our other ships to diesel electric or CODLAG systems, but Volkoff had spent a fortune upgrading the Burya and Leningrad to overpowered diesel and integrated electric Azipod systems and the guys who took the ships up the coast said that they performed and handled far better than our traditional shaft and rudder equivalents, so we converted the other seventy nine ships... That's thirty six of the big ships as you call them, plus the six, hundred and eighty foot Tarantuls, the three hundred and ten foot icebreaker Glacier, four, two hundred and seventy foot Wind class icebreakers, eighteen, two hundred and ten foot rescue and salvage ships that we use for ocean tows and fourteen, hundred and ten foot large harbour tugs... two each at Gillikin Island, Keflavik, Dyer Island, Amchitka, Al Salwa, Isla Culebra and Mageshima... and the landing craft we had at that point to azipods or waterjets."

"Where's Gillikin Island? I haven't heard of it before?" She paused as she realised where that name must have come from. "Oh no... Don't tell me..." Chuck confirmed what she was thinking with a grin, but answered the question seriously.

"That's the name of our facility at the old Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Did I mention that we got the entire Supply and Repair Facility at the Mare Island Shipyard from the Dry Docks Three and Four down to the end of the island, including the South Piers, the two biggest dry docks in the Shipyard and all of the cranes, buildings, floating cranes and everything else that goes with it? We've scrapped four Essex class aircraft carriers there and bought up more aircraft carrier superstructure islands from other ship breakers because Uncle Mike decided that if we wanted to convert ships to flat tops, which we were talking about, the carriers' islands would be handy to have. They were still sitting in the ship breakers' yards because it supposedly would have cost more than it was worth to break them up at the scrap prices at the time, but I think they were also being kept as keepsakes because some of them were still there twenty years after the ships had been scrapped. We managed to acquire a fair few of them though... at one point we had over a dozen of them along the shoreline, mostly from Essex carriers... Anyway, everyone was talking about Gillikin's Islands, and by the time the Naval Shipyard closed in Ninety Six that had grown on us, so we registered the business name Gillikin Island Shipyard, and the Air Station is called the Gillikin Island Air Field."

"So yes, once the Shreveport, Ogden and Saipan have been converted to integrated electric Azipod drive systems, we will have fifty eight ships between three hundred and eight hundred and twenty feet, plus the six LCUs, ninety six aluminium LCM Eights, eight CTMs and twelve Sernas with diesel electric waterjet drive systems for moving cargo between ship and shore and the forty eight LCTs. The Gillikin Island Shipyard usually has a couple of Wichita oilers, two rescue and salvage ships, two large harbour tugs, three, two hundred and two, two hundred and ninety foot small floating dry docks, a dredge and a gaggle of floating cranes and other barges, Keflavik, Dyer Island, Amchitcka, Al Sawda, Isla Culebra and Mageshima each have a seven hundred and eighty foot Auxiliary Repair Dock, a large floating crane, a floating workshop, Alatna and Cimmaron oilers.. well Keflavik and Isla Culebra have Wichitas because there were only five Cimmarons and one of them's at Santa Maria Island, some LCTs and an LCU, one or two rescue and salvage ships and two tugs, but Keflavik, Amchitka and Bar Harbor also have an icebreaker each. We have two more of the icebreakers based in Houston, and LA, plus a rescue and salvage ship and Cimmaron oiler based at Santa Maria Island and salvage ships in Eilat, Miami, Houston and LA, they're all registered to and working for Gillikin Salvage. And there's the six, hundred and eighty foot Tarantuls which are based in LA, Houston, Miami, Philadelphia, Washington and Eilat and the six, eighty foot SOC Mark Fives and a dozen thirty five foot SOC Riverine boats we got from the auction of course. So that's the sum of our marine fleet..."

" _Hold up Mister!_ You didn't _really_ think you were going to slip the Saipan past me like that did you? You have to explain that one Chuck! The only _Saipan_ I know of in the US fleet is a fucking Tarawa class amphibious assault ship!"

"Yep, that's the one... we got her when she was decommissioned at the end of her final operational deployment and we're upgrading her and converting her to integrated electric drive systems."

"What the hell do you need something that size for? You've already got _seven_ other six hundred foot amphibious assault ships!"

"There are some advantages with the Tarawas, including the fact that their well decks are fifty percent wider than the other ships'... But it basically came down to the fact that we wanted to see what we could do with it."

She shook her head at him in exasperation. "Boys and their fucking toys!"

* * *

Chuck just grinned at her and continued. "Anyway, we packed the smaller planes, helicopter prototypes and all of the parts and the specialised moulds, equipment and information that Volkoff needed to build and develop the prototypes and everything else they were making there into our ships, the big planes and the Moskva, Minsk and Kiev which they had sitting at the dock. They were originally the Tapir class large landing ships Petr Ilyichev and Alexandr Tortcev and the Anchorage class dock landing ship Pensacola. Volkoff picked up the Tapirs when they were decommissioned in Ninety Three and Ninety Four, and got his people in the US Navy to get the Pensacola struck off and sold to him in Ninety Seven after I took the Burya and Leningrad off him and got the Aleksandr Nikolayev and Ouragan before he could. We had to fly the bigger planes out of there because they were too big to go on the ships... though the SH Hundreds and Hundred and Twenty were tied down on the decks of the Nonesticas... but luckily they'd done the same thing they did with the big Jets and used the Airbus Three Twenty cockpits to make them easier to fly. Once everything was packed onto the ships and the planes, John and the others who like blowing things up set charges to wipe out anything we left behind as soon as we were out of range and we took off. It was quite spectacular when all those charges went up, I'll show you the pictures later... So that operation added another three ships, eight Serna fast landing craft, sixty five aircraft and about four dozen assorted IFVs and airborne assault vehicles to the collection and expanded our team by quite a bit. John wasn't too happy at first about most of our team at Red Mountain being ex-Russian or Ukrainian, but he's come to accept that their loyalties lie with us now, and that with them we have a world class team."

"Between what Uncle Yuri and the guys told us and what I managed to get out of Volkoff's systems, I pieced together the whole story about how Volkoff had used his government connections to get the root designs he was after developed by Antonov and Mil, then had them can those designs and force Antonov and Mil to go in a different direction. He'd had his people steal the designs he wanted from them, then grabbed the guys for the design team and sent them out to that airbase to build and develop the prototypes into designs that would let him take over the military transport market when the time was right. Volkoff had been short sighted with Antonov though, he'd thought that getting the Russians to renege on the development funding they promised and having Antonov's AN Seventy prototypes sabotaged to make them crash would be enough to make them go broke and collapse so that he could then have the new aircraft division of Volkoff Industries created to produce the planes and helicopters, but Antonov didn't only make military transports and they were too smart to dump all of their working capital into the AN Seventy's development so they didn't go under. That was why he moved all the development work to his hidden weapons facility, because Antonov and Mil would have recognised their designs immediately if he tried to use them, and the Ukraine was big enough to bloody Russia's nose if they got wind of how just much the Russians had stolen from them, but he'd arranged for the normal orbits of any Russian spy satellites to be kept away from the facility, no one from outside was allowed on the base and no one on the base but the ship and air crews had any idea where they were. He'd had his people steal the other designs from Yakovlev, Bombardier, Dassault and Eurocopter and then made his designers develop them from there."

"Anyway... When I had all the information together, I quietly shared it with Antonov, Yakovlev, Sukhoi, Mil, Eurocopter, Bombardier and Dassault and made deals with them that gave us ownership of everything we'd captured from Volkoff's facility, though we only gave Sukhoi the S Twenty One developments and withheld the changes we made to Homer because we don't want to accelerate military development for either side. Transports are one thing, fighters are totally different, that's why we haven't given the Super Tiger developments to Northrop and kept the turboramjet design quiet too. Our guys have also been working on the aircraft and part of the agreements we made was that we'd share some of the things we come up with them... And we also made deals with Ivchenko Progress, the Ukrainian concern who had designed the propfans, turbofans and turboshafts, because Volkoff got them screwed over as well once they'd come up with working and efficient designs in a whole range of sizes... From ones for the big transports like the P Ninety and J Ninety, down to ones for light planes and helicopters like the P Thirty and H Thirty, but Volkoff had had his people can further development of anything but the D Twenty Seven propfans because they were supposedly impractical, and cut out most of the development of the D Twenty Seven as well because without the AN Seventy going anywhere there wasn't anything that was using it, and then kidnapped the bright young engineer who responsible for the breakthroughs that had made them viable. Dimitri had been made to keep working on all these engine types, and the turboramjet that the Super Tigers and Sabre Tooths and Spike and Mina use, at Volkoff's facility though, and he had moved the designs further ahead, even though he had held back on most of his developments because he didn't want to help someone like Volkoff. When we got them set up at Red Mountain, Dimitri had a field day adding with the western developments like the FADEC systems that he hadn't been able to use except on the turboramjets to all the engine designs, and he's improved the output and economy of the propfans quite a bit, and added to the propeller developments they've come up with, the cruising speed had gone up by over ten percent and the range by over twenty five percent for all the planes. We didn't share all of our developments with the companies, but we did share enough to move their development along, and I've invested Three Hundred Million into Antonov to fund their development, because that will pay off quite well when they get the designs certified and can start selling them. It will also make things easier for us because we have to try to avoid letting anyone see Tweedledee, Tweedledum, Andre, Bertha, Boris, Sally, Newt or the P Fifties and Thirties at the moment as part of the agreement to keep them quiet until they've got them certified and known as Antonov designs..."

He jumped in the cut off the question on her lips. "Tweedledee and Tweedeldum are the J Nineties, we called the original J Ninety Big Mama until we got the second one in Oh Three. Andre is the P Ninety, we called it Andre the Giant because it's enormous, Bertha and Boris are the P Seventies, we called them Big Bertha and Big Boris because, well, they're big... Unless you're comparing them to Andre, Tweedledee and Tweedeldum, the Big Birds, the Guppy or Albert anyway, Albert is what Uncle Hank and Yuri designed and built to demonstrate what they thought the Super Guppy should have been, it looks like a really fat C One Thirty Three so Fat Albert was the obvious name for it. The Big Birds are the AN Twenty Twos. The Skymonsters were KC One Oh Six Yukon tankers when we got them, but Uncle Hank and Yuri set up a production line to convert them all into Skymonsters. Sally is short for Salamander, that's the AP Seventy prototype, Newt is the AP Fifty prototype, and we called the AJ Seventy and AJ Fifty prototypes Mickey and Minnie because he moved the engine nacelles higher to get them up out of the spray so they look like mouse ears from head on. Homer, Bart and Nelson were the SH One Twenty and One Hundreds, the ones that were based on the Mil V Twelve before we changed them, because Homer was the NATO name for the V Twelve and Bart and Nelson are smaller versions of Homer. Ricky, Rocky and Roxy are V Fifteens, Spike and Mina are the Supersonic Transports, we call it that because it uses Gulfstream's Quiet Spike concept and it's special enough to rate a cool name, and Spike and Mina sort of tie into the Sonic the Hedgehog theme we used for the supersonic jets. We didn't name the rest of them because we've got too many of them now and they aren't that distinctive, though they _are_ very good aircraft, fast and nice to fly as well."

* * *

She was shaking her head at him. "You have to know that Volkoff won't stop until he finds you Chuck. I've never heard of anyone hurting him as much as you have."

Chuck nodded. "No, I dare say he isn't be too happy with us, especially as torpedoing his aircraft and weapons facility like that must have cost him another Billion Dollars at least, probably more like two Billion, but we don't _know_ that others haven't hit him just as hard, after all you never heard about what we did to him before this, did you?"

She had to concede his point there, but then he frowned so she asked him what it was. "Well we may have made it personal for him when we took the Leningrad and the Kiev... The one running the auction was going on and on about the fact that the Boss had spent years and well over a Hundred and Fifty Million dollars fixing the ships up the way he wanted it, and the Leningrad _was_ fixed up really nicely, that's part of the reason I wanted it originally... The owner's suite of cabins was rather nice and there were also comfortable accommodations on board for the crew and a full Otriad of his elite Spetsnaz guards, and with the new turbines he'd had fitted it was fifty percent faster than it had been as the Ivan Rogov. The guys who came with the ships told us that the Leningrad had been the flagship of Volkoff's personal fleet because it was his favourite until he got the Kiev fixed up the way he wanted... so he probably took it personally when he lost both of them as part of our hostile takeovers."

"So on top of costing Volkoff somewhere between Two and Three _Billion_ Fucking Dollars and destroying his aircraft development and weapons facility, you stole his favourite toys? Are you fucking _crazy_ Charlie?"

"I didn't steal them! Not the Leningrad anyway, I paid him a Hundred and Fifty Million for the ships in Mexico! I may have stolen that money back afterwards, but I didn't steal the ships! There hasn't been any indication in the last twelve years that he thought there was any connection between the Liisa, Bai and Ozma and his ships... and he's got a new toy now anyway, he got his people in the Navy to cancel the major overhaul that had just been started on the Belleau Wood in Two Thousand and Three and have it struck off and sold to him, so he isn't likely to be worrying about the ships we got now..." _  
_

She shook her head in frustration. "You're impossible!..." She tried to think of something else to discuss before they ended up having a serious fight.

* * *

"You've mentioned Stealth Helicopters and the Stealth Helicopter Project a few times now, what's that all about?"

"Okay... Well like I said, the Army really wanted to get Uncle Hank back to restart their stealth helicopter development and Auntie Di used that to get the program turned over to the Spectre group. The Army gave in to her extortion, because Uncle Hank had been instrumental in getting the Quiet Bird project working back in Seventy Two and many people believed that he was the main, if not only, reason it succeeded. Anyway, after she gave in and signed the agreements to say that Emerald City, an external defence contractor, would actually be running the operation on behalf of the Spectre group, we purchased the top secret Red Mountain Underground Strategic Airbase and the Red Mountain Combat Staging and Delivery Training Facility it used for cover, then bought whatever other industrial equipment we needed to develop the stealth helicopters..."

He could see the question on Sarah's lips and answered it. "Okay, I should probably explain about Red Mountain. The Red Mountain Strategic Airbase was created in the late Sixties by building underground hangars around the bases of the missile silos of a large decommissioned Atlas F Missile complex that the Russians never found out about, to secretly maintain wings of B Fifty Two and B Fifty Eight strategic bombers and some of their tanker squadrons in a ready state to make a decisive strike against Russia, along with providing one of the backup sites for NORAD... After the Disarmament Treaty was signed in Ninety Two though, the existence of Red Mountain became a political time bomb that the government was panicking about, so when we made them a proposal to buy everything inside the boundaries of the training facility and assume responsibility for it in early Ninety Three, they jumped at the chance to separate themselves from it. The fifteen Atlas F silos are laid out in a five by three array, about two hundred and seventy yards apart, and the main underground hangar was built around the bases of the silos. The ceiling of the hangers are supported by arched beams anchored to the silos and pylons on the outside walls sixty feet up, so there was enough room to take their forty eight B Fifty Twos, forty eight Hustlers, thirty six F One Oh Six B interceptors, forty eight KC One Oh Six J Yukon tankers, forty eight KC One Thirty Five RT Stratotankers, two AN Twenty Two, two Cargomaster and twelve Starlifter strategic transports and specially made lengthened fuselage twin tail Super Guppy Turbine supply plane. They left all the aircraft assembly and maintenance facilities, along with the living facilities in the fifteen converted Atlas F Missile silos and eight command silos to house the two thousand odd people associated with the bomber and tanker wings and NORAD backup base inside the base, and even more could be housed in the buildings that were part of the training facility above ground... And they also included the twelve Starlifters, thirty six Six Bs, five A Ten Warthogs, including the two seat Night and Adverse Weather prototype, twelve A Fours, three TA Fours, two AN Twenty Twos, four AN Twelves, three AN Thirty Twos, two Cargomasters, four Hercules, four Buffalos, three Cobras, two Chinooks, three Pave Lows, four Jolly Green Giants, eight Little Birds, six Hueys, two MI Twenty Sixes, two MI Sixes, four MI Eights, three MI Seventeens, three MI Twenty Fours, two Agusta One Oh Nine Cs, forty eight Yukons, forty eight Stratotankers and the Super Guppy in what they sold to us..."

"They had all those tankers so that the B Fifty Twos and Hustlers could make a fast and decisive strike into the heart of Russia, and they needed to keep the tanker to bomber ratio at the main refuelling points high to avoid holding them up when the strike was ordered. It would have caused too many questions to be asked if twenty or thirty of the Air Force's front line Stratotankers were being allocated to what was officially a training facility or disappearing when we were at war in Vietnam, but the older KC Ninety Seven Ls had been deemed to be able to keep up with the B Fifty Twos well enough to refuel them using the J Forty Seven Jet pods off the KB Fifties, and they were being retired anyway, so assigning ninety six of the L models to hack duty in a training facility one or two at a time and then fitting extra tanks, refuelling receivers and secure communications equipment and the KC One Thirties' ground and air refuelling systems to them was a good workaround which wasn't questioned, they also modified the refuelling equipment to give fifty percent more flow to speed up the refuelling. The initial tanker deployment they used was forty two Ninety Sevens based at Dyer Island to rendezvous with the B Fifty Twos and Hustlers and top them up before they crossed the Atlantic and fifty four more based at Eilat... _their_ mission was to rendezvous with the the B Fifty Twos and Hustlers over Spain and top them up for the last leg to their targets, then rendezvous again and top them up for the flight back across the Atlantic. But even running at full take off power on both the engines _and_ the jets, which used incredible amounts of fuel, the Ninety Sevens still couldn't match the B Fifty Twos and Hustlers' altitude and speed properly with the heavier fuel loads, so Sac bit the bullet and quietly acquired eighteen Stratotankers that were based in the US... and when the Canadian Air Force decided to replace its forty eight CC One Oh Six Yukons with C and KC One Thirty Fives in Seventy, Sac grabbed the Yukons because they had two thirds more payload, nearly twice the cruising speed and over twice the range of the Ninety Sevens. They still weren't quite as fast as they needed to be act as refuelling aircraft for the B Fifty Twos or Hustlers, so they pulled the jet pods and other upgraded equipment off half of the Ninety Sevens and fitted them to the Yukons, adding tanks that let them more than match the Stratotankers' fuel load. Uncle Hank was working at the base on another project for them at the time so with their head of maintenance's help he convinced the base commander to order two hundred and fifty of the uprated Tyne RTY Thirty Two turboprops from Rolls Royce to upgrade the Yukons, because they had about fifty percent more power than the RTY Twenties they came with... as well as upping the additional order for Pratt and Whitney TF Thirty Three P Seven turbofans to four hundred. They had already ordered four hundred to upgrade the B Fifty Twos, but they decided to go with his recommendations to upgrade the Hustlers to TF Thirty Threes in the B Fifty Twos' twinned pods, as well as the Stratotankers they'd just acquired and the dozen F One Oh Six B trainers they were getting at his recommendation over the F One Oh Twos... because while the TF Thirty Threes were twice the weight and wider than the J Forty Sevens used in the jet pods, they had four times their thrust and twice the efficiency. Between the RTY Thirty Twos and the TF Thirty Three jet pods, the Yukons did the job much better, and the Ninety Sevens had all been punted off to the AMARC by the mid Seventies. With thirty six Yukons based at Dyer Island and twelve Yukons and eighteen Stratotankers based at Eilat, they were way down on tanker numbers, but they had over two point six times the refuelling capacity at Dyer Island and over two point eight times the capacity at Eilat, and the tankers could keep up with the bombers a lot better too. Even though they were way better than the Ninety Sevens though, the Yukons still weren't really fast enough for what they were needed for so when Sac managed to get another thirty Stratotankers in the late Seventies they were relegated to more of a backup role. They had also upgraded the Cargomasters and Guppy to the Tyne RTY Thirty Twos and TF Thirty Three jetpods and used the RTY Twenties that were pulled out of the Yukons to upgrade the AN Twelves, AN Thirty Twos, Hercules and Buffalos... and picked up another two dozen of the Six Bs as they were being taken out of service in the Eighties and upgraded them the same way to serve as Hustler trainers and escorts for the tankers and bombers."

"Above ground at Red Mountain they had the Red Mountain Combat Staging and Delivery Training Facility, which was originally built to explain the existence of the airstrips scattered about the hundred and twenty odd square miles they'd fenced off for this, but they actually did do quite effective combat staging and delivery training with helicopters, air drop and STOL planes and the like. It gave the soldiers, Marines and air crews training and experience in a range of airborne attack and defence scenarios and having the training operations going on around the mocked up towns and airfields added credence to the cover story. All the runways close to Red Mountain have concrete extensions which are coloured to match the valley dirt to make it look like they're only usable by STOL or bush planes, and they put the whole valley inside the prohibited airspace for the nuclear testing facilities in Area Twenty Seven next door to stop planes flying close enough to get a good look at it, and fenced in all the boundaries to stop anyone wandering in... They did something similar with the refuelling facility outside Eilat, as the two concrete runways there were coloured to make them look like dirt runways and the facilities are underground, that was where they developed the processes they used to build Red Mountain..."

"What they did was quite clever actually. They had... acquired... two of the new Soviet AN Twenty Two heavy transports, plus four AN Twelve tactical transports, a couple of Mil MI Sixes and and four MI Eight helicopters in the late Sixties when they were building the staging facility with the IDF after the Six Day War... and they'd also had the best of the Cargomasters and Buffalos that were being retired, two Hercules and six Starlifters allocated to the training camp, along with Little Birds, Jolly Green Giants and Hueys. So they worked all of those aircraft into the plan they came up with for a Combat Delivery Training Facility to act as a cover for the airbase. The story was that they were using the training facility to simulate forward staging operations and combat deliveries. The Twenty Twos, Cargomasters and Starlifters were used to simulate deliveries to and operations out of the forward staging areas, as well as large scale airdrop deliveries of troops... The Starlifter and Stratotanker cockpits, controls and characteristics had all been changed to match the B Fifty Twos' so that the B Fifty Two air crews could keep up their skills without exposing the existence of the B Fifty Twos..." He paused and shook his head. "The B Fifty Two cockpits had all been ripped out and taken away along with everything else that could be positively identified as coming from B Fifty Twos or Hustlers before we took over the base to prevent it getting out that they'd had the B Fifty Twos and Hustlers there, but we didn't want them anyway because B Fifty Two cockpits are a nightmare, it's a wonder how they ever managed to fly them effectively, we replaced them with A Three Twenty cockpits and controls, and copies of the A Three Forty consoles... Anyway, the AN Twelves, Hercules and Buffalos and later IL Seventy Six and AN Thirty Twos were used for deploying troops and supplies via more normal scale airdrops and short strip landings, and the helicopters were used for helicopter troop and supply deliveries with gunship and close air support, and all of them were _also_ used to simulate Russian invasion scenarios... they ran attack and defence scenarios concurrently on most operations. The tankers at Red Mountain were used for aerial refuelling training for tactical aircraft pilots and refuelling the aircraft used for the exercises on the ground... and to refuel the B Fifty Twos and Hustlers after they took off if they were scrambled of course... The tanker and Starlifter aircrews were actually all B Fifty Two and Hustler aircrews and they were rotating them through Red Mountain to keep their skills up, six at a time at first and eighteen at a time later... they were refuelling other aircraft, refuelling from the other tankers and running the Starlifter airdrops to do that. They used the tanker and Starlifter operations to keep their B Fifty Two skills up, and the Six Bs to keep their Hustler pilot and navigator skill sets up, the Six Bs had all been fitted with the Hustlers' ejection capsules and the pilot and navigator's cockpits, and TF Thirty Threes to improve their performance and range, they topped Mach Two point Five with the Thirty Threes on afterburner... They acquired another six Starlifters, an IL Seventy Six, two AN Thirty Twos, three Agusta One Oh Nine Cs, four MI Seventeens and three MI Twenty Fours in the Seventies and two MI Twenty Sixes in the Eighties... and added the extra Cobras, Chinooks, Pave Lows, Jolly Green Giants, Hueys, Little Birds, Hercules, Skyhawks and Warthogs as they were pulled out of active duty. Even though the original intention was just for the training facility to act as a smoke screen, the attack and defence scenario training under fire was quite valid, and by all accounts it did a good job of preparing our troops and air crews for combat... The Skyhawks and Warthogs were used to make the combat scenarios more real by blowing things up all around the ones doing the training, but they were also there for base defence and had been seriously upgraded..."

"But the _primary_ reason to have the AN Twenty Twos and Cargomasters there was to support their need to build bigger hangars to hide the access tunnels into the Strategic Airbase's main underground hangar. They needed the access tunnels to be wide enough to let the B Fifty Twos go through fast and loose when they were being scrambled, so they dug hangars into the foothills of Red Mountain and the nearby hills to house and maintain all the planes and helicopters used for the Combat Delivery Training. Most of the fifty hangars were _supposedly_ made two hundred and twenty feet wide by five hundred and fifty deep by fifty high to allow them to get the Starlifters and any and all aircraft and vehicles that were there for the training exercises under cover quickly if radioactive dust from the nuclear test sites up north was being blown in by sudden dust storms, but they made four of them about two seventy by six fifty by seventy to fit the upcoming C Five Galaxy heavy transport, using the argument that if the AN Twenty Twos and Cargomasters were being used there, the Galaxies would be too. That gave them plenty of room to get the B Fifty Twos out in a hurry without risk of them being damaged by touching the walls on the way through, because those hangars were the entrances for the access tunnels into the main hangars. No-one but the Training Facility's personnel were allowed inside the hangars and the hangar wall and ceiling linings are all constructed the same way as the doors, with very solid metal outer skins and frameworks, so even if someone did manage to see inside the Big Birds' hangars, the rear wall would have been hard to pick as another hangar door in the available light from two hundred and twenty yards away... They used the same process, hangar doors and linings to build what were supposedly fuel stores and the like into the valley walls at the refuelling base outside Eilat when it was built the previous year..."

"Anyway, they could and did ensure that they operated the camp outside as a working Combat Staging and Delivery Training Facility which housed the troops and aircrews who came through and repaired, serviced and fuelled the aircraft being used for it for over twenty years, but the ones who came through for the training didn't have any idea of what was behind those hangars. Uncle Hank was an exception because after he had been called in a number of times to consult on their aircraft upgrade and conversion programs and he kept in contact with some of the maintenance people there. After the B Fifty Twos and Hustlers were taken away and destroyed in Ninety Two, and the fall of the Soviet Union removed much of the need for the type of training that they did there, both the Airbase and Training Facility were closed down in Ninety Two. But the backup NORAD site and associated systems were still using a lot of power, so by the time we offered to take it over in early Ninety Three, the facility had cost the Air Force over a Hundred Million Dollars to try and hush up all the questions that were being asked about why a training camp that was mostly empty was using so much power. That was why they jumped at the chance to get rid of it when we made an offer to take over the entire facility and assume full responsibility for it."

* * *

Sarah was staring at him in shock.

"Yeah... Well it took us a few more months to get in the rest of the specialised equipment that Uncle Hank and Yuri wanted for the project, but we had plenty of room and the existing facilities were enough for them to get started on the work. At that point Uncle Hank had Yuri and another aeronautical engineer and Joe and a dozen more fabricators and aircraft mechanics on his team and they got started on improving the rotor design that Uncle Hank had helped come up with back in Seventy Two. Mind you, I think they were spending more time working on improving the Yak and Challenger than the helicopters at first, because that was when the Yak got the M Two twin engine conversion, and they both had an extra twenty feet plugged into the fuselage and got improved wings and tails. They also started designing and building a bigger and improved version of the Super Guppy based on the Cargomasters with D Twenty Seven propfans, twin tails and clamshell doors front and rear. With a fuselage diameter of about thirty six feet, the fact that it's about a hundred and ninety five feet long isn't that obvious. It basically looks like a really fat Cargomaster, hence its name. They lengthened the Guppy another twenty feet and widened the bottom of the fuselage to make it oval rather than a teardrop shape to increase its capacity, putting the engine nacelles on top of the wings like the AN Thirty Twos' to give the new D Twenty Seven propfans more prop clearance and added the Airbus Beluga's chin cockpit with clamshell doors above it and stronger and lighter composite airframe, wings and tails and titanium components. They made similar modifications to convert all the Yukons into Conroy Skymonsters, lengthening them by about twenty feet, increasing the width and height of the fuselages by about fifty percent and giving them and twin tails... They also totally rebuilt... well recreated really... the Twenty Twos, making up new wings which took the new D Twenty Seven propfans... Anyway, things started moving faster on the Stealth Project after we took everything from that military auction, because the Hummingbirds all had Fenestron tail rotors... they're basically shrouded fans, but they make a notable reduction in the tail rotor noise. Hank and the others examined them and came up with improved Fenestron tail rotors for the H Thirties, and then the rest of the Hummingbirds, then created a Fenestron tail rotor for the Little Bird."

"Between that and the main rotor improvements they'd come up with, it made a notable reduction in the acoustic signature, so we submitted the first version for evaluation to the panel overseeing the Army Helicopter Improvement Program about halfway through Ninety Seven. That was when we realised that we were going to be fighting them all the way, because the panel just rejected the submission for nonsensical reasons. We documented every little detail of why their objections were nonsense and Uncle Hank and his team went back to work. Whenever they've made a significant improvement that was repeatable and resulted in a measurable reduction in the acoustic signature, we'd submit it to the panel, but they rejected the submissions every time... anyway, we've made between one and four submissions every year since then. We saw a bit more of their game about six years ago, because they tried to demand that we hand over the full technical documentation for what we'd developed, but we refused, referring them to the legal agreements which clearly stated that when they _formally_ accepted our submission, Emerald City would perform the stealth conversions on any and all helicopters involved, because our stealth technology was protected under both commercial and national security controls. We've also been picking up other European utility and transport helicopters along the way to see what design elements they may offer which could help the project."

"The guys made a major breakthrough early last year while they were working on improving the tractive power and reducing the noise levels of the propfans. This breakthrough resulted in a significant reduction in the main rotor's acoustic signature through the use of asymmetric rotor blade spacing and thinner rotor blades, and a notable reduction in the tail rotor's acoustic signature too, but unfortunately it also resulted in a notable reduction in performance. As a workaround for that they used the Five Thirty F's more powerful turbine and modified the FADEC to allow the full power to be used. They weren't comfortable that the stock transmission could handle the power though so they created new improved titanium transmissions with better bearings that could easily handle the extra power and even freed up a bit of power through reduced mechanical drag and using a vertical airfoil shape for the boom that improved the lift a fraction and made a minor reduction in the power needed for the tail rotor. That was enough to let them exceed a normal Little Bird's performance in full stealth mode, but they took a hit in range because a lot more power had to be used to overcome the reduced lift of the thinner main rotor blades. They went back to the drawing board and came up with a modification that would allow both the main rotor blades and tail rotor to be switched between Symmetric and Asymmetric spacing in the field in ten to fifteen minutes, so they could have better performance in transport mode by using the symmetric spacing, then change to asymmetric spacing to go into full stealth mode for the final approach, That improved things, but there was still a notable reduction in range due to extra power that had to be used to counter the reduced lift of the thinner rotor blades. We found that by using thicker main rotor blades, the performance and range with the stealth rotor actually exceeded the standard rotor's figures, but the acoustic signature using asymmetric spacing was increased so the stealth capability suffered."

"Uncle Hank and the team came up with a way to mount one set of rotor blades on the skid supports so that the thicker blades can be used with symmetric spacing for improved performance and range in transport mode, but they could be swapped in about an hour in the field so that full transport and full stealth mode can be used in the same mission. We submitted this proposal, because it was the most effective stealth helicopter solution possible, but the panel overseeing helicopter projects claimed that there were too many modifications to approve for use on Army helicopters. They wouldn't approve the Fenestron tail rotors or booms, custom transmissions, modifying the FADEC to allow full power to be used, fitting more powerful turbines even though they're used on existing MD five hundred models, or changing the rotor blades or even rotor blade spacing in the field. Effectively they rejected over ninety percent of what made our solution effective. The only part of the solution they were willing to sign off on was the original fixed asymmetric spacing main rotor hub with the thicker rotor blades."

"The guys were all understandably pissed off by that type of stupidity and we were just about to tell Auntie Di to cancel the Stealth Helicopter Program altogether when the Army selected the EC One Forty Five as its new light utility helicopter. Eurocopter was already using Fenestron tail rotors on the One Thirty Five, which was just a slightly smaller version of the same helicopter, and they were working on a Fenestron tail variant of the One Forty Five that already included most of the changes they'd made to the Little Bird, so we would be able to come up with a stealth version of the One Forty Five with far less changes. We were banking on that being enough to get past the bullshit arguments they'd used to reject the Little Bird solution, so Uncle Roan and I flew to France to talk Eurocopter into selling us some of the Fenestron rail rotors, uprated turbines and FADEC systems, upgraded avionics etc that they were using for the new One Forty Five variant, we picked up a couple of beaten up EC One Forty Fives to work with while we were there because they were a fraction of the price second hand One Forty Fives were fetching in the States. We installed the basic stealth components and even staying within their restrictive parameters they exceeded the requirements we were given, but even with proof that the majority of the components were from the manufacturer, the Army panel just came up with another excuse to reject them. That was the final straw for Uncle Hank and the team, and they converted every single helicopter we had into full stealth machines. We haven't cancelled the Stealth Helicopter Program because by then we'd had enough time to calm down and accept that we've got too much invested in it, over Three Hundred and Fifty Million and fourteen years' effort, to abandon it, but we won't deal with those idiots any more. If they try to cancel the agreement for the Spectre group to run the program because of that, we'll present thirteen years worth of evidence to show the proper authorities that we've submitted over fifty demonstrably viable and usable stealth helicopter solutions in that time and they've fabricated excuses to reject every single one of them."

* * *

She shook her head again. "By the way, why do you still have the Super Tigers? Other than what you said about Keflavik it's not like you have a fighter squadron..." She paused at that, but decided not to voice the thought that had just come to mind... "but you didn't mention getting rid of them?"

He shook his head at that. "Oh no, we keeping _them_! Volkoff somehow managed to steal at least a dozen complete TF Sixteen N cockpits from the AMARC... There was a major shit fight when _that_ came out and it was investigated of course, but nothing ever came of the investigation. He had a disgruntled Northrop engineer who was pissed off because the Tigershark got canned before it could realise its true potential create the Super Tigers for him, but unfortunately the engineer got accidentally killed in the scuffle when he recognised Uncle Hank at the auction and tried to raise the alarm... it's a pity really because what he did was brilliant and Uncle Hank was trying to talk him into changing sides. Anyway, they converted the F Five G airframe design to use the more powerful and efficient turboramjet Dimitri created, based on the Blackbird's Pratt and Whitney J Fifty Eights, pared it down as much as they could and added internal weapons bays to make it cleaner, they also gave it twin rudders and bigger horizontal surfaces like the F Thirty Five and canards to make it much more manoeuvrable. They created most of the airframe out of titanium, carbon fibre and kevlar, and the turbofan is largely titanium with kevlar housings as well, so the Super Tigers are actually lighter than the F Fives were, but with full FADEC systems and the later developments Dimitri made those engines put out over twenty two thousand pounds of thrust dry and thirty seven thousand on afterburner now and the airframes are a lot cleaner aerodynamically, so they'll supercruise at Mach One Point Eight and go past Mach Two Point Seven clean on afterburner. Volkoff had them fitted out with the full TF Sixteen N trainer cockpits and the lastest avionics at the time... updated glass cockpits, fly by wire and FADEC systems, side sticks and HOTAS, the lot. We had to tweak the fly by wire systems to fix some early stability problems, but having the fly by wire systems, F Thirty Five equivalent vertical and horizontal control surfaces and canards makes them very agile... You're certified on the F Sixteen, you know how in a lightweight, agile airframe, all that adds up to a plane that's really fun to fly, and the Sonics are a hell of a lot better than F Sixteens. Those engines are a hell of a lot more efficient than most turbofans of that type too, so with the added efficiency of the FADEC systems, the bigger tanks they built into them, in flight refuelling systems and supercruise, they're perfect for supersonic cross country trips too, and supersonic trips to Europe for that matter. So yeah, we're hanging onto the Sonics!... And the Shadow is as I said based on Sukhoi's T Fifty design, it's a two seater too and has two of the Sonics' turboramjets with the SR Seventy One's full intake spikes, so with the clean design and lightweight titanium, carbon fibre and kevlar construction it'll supercruise at Mach Two Point Three and do over Mach Three Point Five on afterburner, it looks similar enough to the F Twenty Two B Raptors that we've got away with registering them with the Air Force and flying them as Raptors... I would have been pissed if we didn't because we had to secretly pony up over Seventy Million to stop the development of the two seat Twenty Two Bs being cancelled due to arbitrary cost cutting measures..."

"So let me get this straight, you've got a long range F Five based multi role fighter that is far more manoeuvrable than the original F Fives or Tigersharks, will do Mach Two Point Seven, _supercruise_ at Mach One Point Eight and has all the latest systems of the F Sixteen, but you've got _another_ plane that's almost as agile which will reach Mach Three Point Five and supercruise at Mach Two point Three?"

"Well we have eight of the Sonics actually, the six from the auction that we've upgraded to include all the later developments and two more that they had at the facility, and there are four of the Shadows, but yeah. Our mandate for taking down that auction was just to stop those combat jets and the like getting into the wrong hands. The Air Force and Navy have no place for non-standard fighters, but we weren't going to let aircraft that good be destroyed so we kept them. The controls and glass cockpits are pure F Sixteen, so while their behaviour differs slightly from the F Sixteen, any competent pilot who's certified on the Sixteen can fly the Sonics and Shadows with a bit of coaching on the extra systems, and with the fly by wire control systems there isn't that much difference anyway."

* * *

Chuck could see that Sarah was having trouble wrapping her head around all of this so he sat down, took a deep breath and tried to explain. "Look, you probably won't understand this because your records say that you haven't had a break from missions in years, but most of the last seventeen years or so have been one big slog for Ellie and me, Auntie Em, Mom, Anna and the others too but Ellie and I have been working eighteen to twenty hours a day for the majority of it and it wears you down. While John and I are sent away on missions a fair bit... it's been about four a month since Nine Eleven but it was two a month for about ten years before that too... Ellie's mostly been stuck in LA trying to stay on top of the workload and keep her cover life going. The Sonics pretty much fell in our laps and they're incredible planes, but they didn't fit into any of the normal slots for the Air Force, Navy, anything really, and we weren't going to hand them over to be destroyed... So we kept them and fly them whenever we get the chance. Ellie and I used to use the Sonics to fly to Boston on the days we had to be there for Harvard or MIT, we use them to get to DC when it's urgent, Mom and Ellie used one to get to England when we found Viv, John and I used them to get to the Middle East quite often... and quite possibly more importantly, we fly them for fun and freedom from the grind. Getting up there in a fast, agile jet is a great release, and with eight jets like them we can get one hell of a dog fight going. And the Shadows are almost as manoeuvrable as the Sonics and even faster with much longer range... they have much more room between the engines for fuel tanks and we normally fill the weapons bays with extra tanks, so they only require one refuelling between Nevada and Europe at max supercruise, though that goes up to three or four on afterburner..."

"Spike and Mina will supercruise at Mach Two and cruise at over Mach Three on afterburner, _and_ they'll carry twenty people all up in commuter mode, but they attract a lot of attention. We officially picked up a couple of TU Twenty Two R Blinders that the Ukrainian Air Force were going to scrap to modify and use as research platforms for supersonic transports and back dated all the records to the late Nineties... but even after we altered the base configuration to match Spike's and added carbon fibre wings, twin tails and canards it was a stretch to get people to believe that Spike and Mina were modified versions of the same plane as them, and flying them was dodgy because even with the fly by wire systems they were unstable, the TU Twenty Twos are gone now though. We still have to be careful about letting anyone get too close a look at them but we spent six years modifying those two TU Twenty Twos into something that looked more and more like Spike and Mina and letting them be seen flying around the Test and Training Range at over Mach Two, so hopefully enough people will swallow the story that they're the end result of six years of development and experimentation, and Sukhoi are working on the revised S Twenty One design now, if they go into production we'll be able to use our's openly."

"As far as keeping everything else we took from Volkoff goes, we weren't going to give them to other manufacturers to make a fortune off but they were too good to just destroy, and they're working quite well for us. We've got a few thousand people on the books for the Spectre group now, but there are at least four or five times that many _off_ the books, more if you include all the ones we took on to build Berlin Airport... and we carry cargo all over the world so a decent transport fleet is more of necessity than a luxury... And quite aside from being useful, the H Nineties, H Seventies, H Fifties and H Thirties helped prove that our stealth solution is both effective and flexible, because whether the Army accepts it or not, we've proven that we can create quite effective stealth helicopters out of all the other helicopters. Even if you lump the H Seventy, Fifty and Thirty, Jolly Green Giant and Pave Low, Lakota and EC One Thirty Five, Huey and Kiowa and the MI Twenty Six and Six in together as they're in the same families, that's still twelve completely different Helicopter platforms and it's been proven to be effective on every one."

* * *

Sarah just shook her head at him with a smile. "I _do_ understand what you're saying Chuck, it was just a shock, you know? Not many people have their own F Five, let alone eight seriously improved ones and all the rest of it. As you know I'm certified on the Challenger Six Hundred, Little birds and F Sixteen... So you better believe that I will be flying those Sonics and Shadows and Spike and Mina _soon_!... But I also want to get certified to fly all your other helicopters and jets, the prop planes as well... You need to explain what you were saying about the Super Guppy and Albert though, those Super Guppies were enormous planes to start with, they couldn't have made them that much bigger, surely?"

He shook his head with a laugh. "Oh, you have a lot to learn about Uncle Hank, Joe and Yuri Sarah. Okay, for a start this particular Super Guppy was about twenty foot longer than the other ones you would have seen even before they lengthened it by another twenty feet, and using the twin tails meant that it went a lot further back before it began to taper off. That gave it more capacity than Airbus' Beluga, which was further increased when they widened the bottom half of the fuselage and made it oval, but they made Albert as an entirely new composite version of a Cargomaster with a round fuselage that's about thirty six feet in diameter and a hundred and ninety five feet long and built it all out of titanium, carbon fibre and kevlar to make it stronger and lighter. That means its fuselage is about the same height but around ten foot wider and ten foot longer on the outside than our Super Guppy, and about eleven foot wider and seven foot higher for about a hundred and forty feet inside, tapering down to about twenty feet wide and ten feet high thirty foot further back, it can be configured with one or two cargo decks and it's got clamshell doors front and rear because they're more practical... so it's got one hell of a lot more capacity, payload and range than Airbus' Beluga. The Guppy was upgraded to D Twenty Sevens in Ninety Four too, so it can match the Beluga's performance with more space and range as well. They totally rebuilt Big Bird in Ninety Five as well, making up new wings and fuselages and fitting D Twenty Sevens to it. They made the Yukons into Conroy Skymonsters with twin tails and the Forty Four D Four's swing tail so their fuselages are about five feet wider and twenty feet longer, have about double the cargo capacity, are handier to load and unload. We've added extra fuel tanks to all the planes to give them intercontinental range. We've also converted most of the primary planes to A Three Twenty or hybrid Challenger Six Hundred and A Three Twenty cockpits like our other transports to make them easier to fly. After we cleaned out Volkoff's facility in Two Thousand and Three, Dimitri upgraded the D Twenty Sevens on the Guppy and Big Bird to include all the improvements he'd made in the past six years, so they're much more powerful and efficient, but we converted Albert to use the bigger propfans that Andre is using because it's so much bigger... And as I said, we used the CFM Fifty Six dash Twos that had been left behind at Red Mountain when we took over the base in Ninety Four to upgrade the IL Seventy Sixes and other planes..."

"You said that before, but that doesn't make any sense Chuck, why would they have CFM Fifty Sixes at a B Fifty Two and Hustler base?"

"Because they weren't ordinary B Fifty Twos or Hustlers Sarah. They diverted forty eight B Fifty Two Es that were supposedly being retired to the base and then rebuilt them from the ground up as B Fifty Two Hs with the wet wings, TF Thirty Three P Seven turbines and bigger tails, that was why they needed the custom Super Guppy and Cargomasters, to secretly fly all the wings, tails and other components in. The Hustlers were diverted from the AMARC to the base modified to use the B Fifty Two twin TF Thirty Three pods because the TF Thirty Threes had over a third more thrust and three and a half times the efficiency of the J Seventy Nines they came with, which let them leave off that massive fuel and bomb pod, which in turn dropped thousands of pounds and almost halved the drag. In the early Seventies the B Fifty Twos were all converted to cruise missile carriers with the internal rotary launchers that let them carry twenty missiles each, and the Hustlers were converted to carry five missiles each, so together they could deliver twelve hundred nuclear cruise missiles. The B Fifty Twos got all the avionics upgrades that came out in the Seventies and Eighties, and from the late Seventies the B Fifty Twos, Hustlers, Stratotankers, Starlifters, jet pods and Sixes were all upgraded to take CFM Fifty Six dash Two engines that had been modified to use water injection, which gave them twenty percent more power and extended their range by about a third because they were that much more efficient than the TF Thirty Threes. At that time the B Fifty Twos also got extra tanks fitted to give them the capacity to push their speed on the transport legs enough to enter Russia with the Hustlers and take out Russia's strategic targets before they could be discovered... That was also when they added the other thirty Stratotankers to the fleet, because hundreds of them had been mothballed after Vietnam because they were too expensive to run when there was no great need for them, so they quietly got thirty more allocated to the base and upgraded them to the CFMs and made receiver capable with upgraded communications and over fifty percent more capacity around the same time as they started upgrading the existing fleet. They kept all the Yukons to expand the refuelling capacity. With the extra Stratotankers they had twelve Yukons based at Red Mountain to top up the Hustlers after they took off, eighteen Yukons and eighteen Stratotankers at Dyer Island and eighteen Yukons and thirty Stratotankers based at Eilat so they could give the B Fifty Twos and Hustlers bigger and faster top ups to let them push the planes harder and improve their chance of reaching their targets without detection... because that gave them the capacity of about thirteen normal Stratotankers and four Hustlers per tanker at Red Mountain, about fifty one Stratotankers and two point seven bombers per tanker at Dyer Island and nearly seventy two Stratotankers and two bombers per tanker for the Eilat tankers... The Yukons have much better loiter capabilities than the Stratotankers, so they and a few of the Stratotankers were meant to take any spare fuel the others had and stay on station to top up the B Fifty Twos and Hustlers for the trip back across the Atlantic while the others headed back to Eilat. Anyway, that's why they had spare CFM Fifty Sixes at the base... They removed the engines and everything else from the B Fifty Twos and Hustlers and returned them to Red Mountain when they were destroyed in Ninety Two and recalled the Stratotankers, Yukons and Sixes from Dyer Island and Eilat... to cover up the fact that they'd obviously been modified for a special purpose, so there were over five hundred and fifty CFM Fifty Six Dash Twos sitting at the base when we took it over... Those engines _could_ have easily been used to upgrade the remaining Stratotankers to CFMs, and for that matter forty eight improved Stratotankers and forty eight Yukon tankers could have improved the US Military's refuelling capabilities quite a bit... but those engines and the Stratotankers and Yukons had obviously been modified and maintaining secrecy was more important to Strategic Air Command than wasting Hundreds of Millions of dollars, so they were all hidden away in Red Mountain and left to rot."

She shook her head at him. "Okay, I obviously _did_ underestimate _Uncle_ Hank and Yuri... and the Air Force apparently... but that seems to be going around if you think you could get away with quickly mentioning that Ricky, Rocky and Roxy are V Fifteens and then try and make me forget about it by bombarding me with all that other information about the rest of your private Air Force. So... Just what _are_ your V Fifteens Chuck? I've never heard of anything but the XV Fifteen prototypes that the Ospreys came from use that desig..." She trailed off because Chuck's expression gave him away. "That's it! You've got XV Fifteens, haven't you? How? how the hell did you get your hands on the last XV Fifteen prototype? What's on display at the Smithsonian if you've got the prototype? And what are the other ones?"

"The XV Fifteen the Smithsonian has on display was built from the remains of the first prototype... We got the remains of the first prototype signed over to us as part of what we got with Red Mountain, and Uncle Hank, Joe and Yuri rebuilt it and got it flying again. When they got it to the point where they were happy with it, we did a deal with the Smithsonian to trade it as something supposedly built from the usable half of the first prototype for the safer second prototype..."

He put his hands up to forestall the flood of questions and hurriedly went on. "The crash that supposedly wrote the first prototype off actually happened at the Red Mountain Training Facility. The Bell officials were going to have the wreck chopped up to take it away and scrap it, but the Base Commander talked them into just taking the cockpit and engines and signing over the rest of the remains to him so that his people could see whether it was fixable, because Uncle Joe, who was the head of maintenance there at the time, had begged him to. They didn't get around to doing anything with the remains before the Airbase and Training Facility were closed down though, so they signed all rights and responsibilities associated with the wreck over to Emerald City, just as Bell had signed it over to them. Uncle Hank and Yuri reshaped the fuselage into something a little more practical, replaced half of it with titanium and carbon fibre and built in a turntable for the wing so it could be made more compact for storage like the Ospreys. They got it flying quite well in the Nineties with a couple of T Sixty Four turbines and custom rotor heads, but it wasn't what they'd wanted to build. They got their chance to build _that_ in Two Thousand and Three after we cleaned out Volkoff's aircraft facility, because that's when they got the smaller propfans that Dimitri had developed for the P Thirty. It took them another year to develop rotor heads that worked to their satisfaction with the contra rotating props, but they did, and now we've got a fourteen passenger plane that can take off and land like a normal twin prop, fly across the country non-stop at four hundred and fifty knots, has full STOL and VTOL helicopter capabilities, and is quieter than most prop planes and helicopters. The only problem is that we need to keep all that a secret because we aren't prepared to hand everything we developed over for Bell and Boeing to make a fortune off of it. Ricky and Rocky are our guys' vision of what the V Fifteen should be, and Roxy is N Seven Oh Three NA with propfans and other modifications to make it as close as possible to Ricky and Rocky so we can show it to people who are asking about it. We did the same thing with the Ospreys actually, we got the first four Ospreys that were written off from the AMARC after they got the tilt rotors working and supposedly rebuilt them with a few modifications, that's true for _two_ of them so we can let people look at them, but our four proper Ospreys are basically just bigger versions of Ricky and Rocky that they built from scratch... And they've modified Homer and Bart into bigger versions of the tilt rotors as well, they don't have the swivel wings and will only cruise at around four hundred and twenty knots but they will shift one hell of a lot of cargo, they based the SH One Twenty on the P Seventy's fuselage and it can actually lift three quarters of its full payload vertically, which makes for one hell of an impressive tactical transport, and so do Bart and Nelson, which they based on the P Fifty fuselage... We've created new TiltRotor designations for them and the other tilt rotors, so the V Fifteens are T Thirties, the Ospreys are T Fifties, Bart and Nelson are T Seventies and Homer is the T Ninety."

Sarah just stared at him, she knew that he wasn't making this up but just couldn't believe that they'd created something like that. The supersonic jets were almost knocked off the top of the list of what she wanted to get her hands on first, _almost_.

Now that he'd come clean, Chuck hooked his laptop up to the big screen in the cabin and showed Sarah what he'd been talking about. The outfit Anna wore when she was playing his sexy little Chinese plaything come bodyguard at the military auction made Sarah blink, because she hadn't even seen Carina dressed that provocatively in a scenario like that, it made the sexy secretary outfit she wore to distract Chuck Bartowski look like an old maid's outfit, but seeing the video of what she did to the Columbian and his guard was shocking, and impressive... Anna was damned good, and incredibly ruthless when she had to be, going by what she did to that Columbian. Seeing what their air fleet looked like, inside and out though, she was almost salivating at the thought of getting behind the controls of some of these, _especially_ those supersonic jets!... and Ricky and Rocky. She understood what Chuck was saying about Albert when she saw the pictures, that thing was _enormous_ inside! Even the Super Guppy was bigger inside than she would have believed a plane could be. Anna was watching her, amused, because they'd all had similar reactions when they first saw the planes and copters, but Sarah's reactions seemed more extreme because they were all being crammed into an hour or so.

There was one image that Sarah saw which caused considerable... debate... though, the SS Minnow. She stopped and pointed to the image on the screen, asking "Chuck, what it _that_?" in a voice that anyone who knew her indicated that she was about to explode. Chuck wasn't too fussed though and he grinned. "That's the SS Minnow... _officially_... it's our mocked up tribute to the Albacore _."_

The smile that normally made her go weak at the knees didn't work this time though and she went on in the same voice. "I didn't ask you what it was _officially_ Chuck, I asked you what it _is_!"

"Okay, what it _is_ is our amphibious assault submarine. The Barbel class were the last US conventional subs made, and when the USS Barbel was struck off in Ninety, a company in San Pedro got the contract to scrap her, but after they'd cut off her conning tower and sail they discovered asbestos insulation inside and stopped work. We arranged with them and the Navy to take over the scrapping contract and towed her back to Mare Island, putting her up on the shore and cutting off the bow and stern cones to make it look like we were scrapping her, and because the Navy wasn't worried about her without torpedo tubes or a drive. Dad came up with a way to safely remove the asbestos insulation and we researched the latest developments in conventional subs. We'd already decided that she was going to be diesel electric with the Albacore's X planes and contra rotating props and she was going to be used to get our people in and out of mission sites, it was just the details that were up in the air. Some of those were filled in when we got the contract to scrap a dry deck shelter that had been damaged in collisions with a ship at sea in Ninety Six. The damage was only to the upper rear of the chamber, so everything around the door was fine, and that gave us an idea. We built a spherical pressure tight chamber into the new nose cone for the sub, which has the dry deck shelter's door mounted on the front. The rest of the old torpedo room has been divided into four pressure tight chambers, each of which has hatches into the sphere. They actually make up a separate pressure hull to the sub proper, and serve as quarters for the ones being transported. We built another vertical cylindrical pressure chamber into the front of the sail, that one's normally meant for surface exits but it's rated to the same pressure as the nose chamber and has the mechanisms to be flooded and emptied as well, and she's got two twenty one inch torpedo tubes in the bottom segments that can be used to put divers in the water too. The diesels for the diesel electric drive system are the same type we use in our boats because they're the most efficient type made and we've replaced the old batteries with new fuel cells. As I said it's got contra rotating props, they're driven by bushless motors which are also in a separate pressure hull to the sub proper. The testing our guys did indicated that the safe operating depth for the Minnow is two to three times what it was as the Barbel, and she's faster and has better range as well. When we rebuilt her we added those skids, which are actually external ballast tanks, so that she can sit on the bottom and wait for the team to return, with the later technology we incorporated into the rebuild she can wait for at least three weeks without trouble, and as you see, she can sit on the skids out of the water so she doesn't have weed and barnacles growing on her, and _most_ people believe the story that she's nothing more than a mock up of the Albacore. Her surface speed and range is limited compared to our other ships, but if we need to we can load her into one of the dock ships and use them to carry her most of the way because those external ballast tanks let her float high enough to be launched from the dock ships."

Sarah was shaking her head at him. She wanted to be pissed at him for making her doubt everything she thought she knew, but this was her Charlie, always challenging how things were and coming up with some crazy scheme to do things a different way. He looked at her, waiting to see what her reaction was, but she just looked at him resignedly and asked. "Why the SS Minnow?" Knowing full well that there was only one possible answer, because for all the fact that Nora had been the one who was closest to Uncle Stefan when they were kids, Charlie had acquired Uncle Stefan's rather bizarre sense of humour (probably because Auntie Mary never seemed to have one, but that had been explained when she found out that Auntie Mary was actually Frost).

That got his grin back. "Because it's on Gillikan Island of course! Barbels are also called Minnows, so the SS Minnow was the only possible name for an advanced amphibious assault sub that spends most of its time on what sounds like Gilligin's Island."

She just laughed and kissed him. Yep, this was her Charlie alright!

Flying into Tipton Field meant that they were less than ten minutes away from Fort Meade when they landed, which made things easier.


	10. What Are Your Intentions?

**I've done it again, sorry. For some reason the setup they had at Plant 42 looks too shaky to me now, so I've scrapped it. Raccoon City is now in what was a secret underground strategic airbase from the height of the Cold War that the Air Force hid near Mercury in the Nevada Test Site to _keep_ it a secret. Other ******Raccoon City** references still apply, but it's now located in the underground airbase, with a Combat Delivery Training Facility above ground to cover up the existence of the airbase... and they've acquired a passel of Soviet planes and helicopters, a handful of old tankers and a Super Guppy with the base. If anyone's interested, most of the changes are in chapters 3 and 9 (which is now called History of the World Part One because it got too big so I moved the part with that line and title to this chapter... Oops, sorry ;^).  
**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale.**

* * *

Graham's people weren't happy to see Chuck walk in with his handlers and the General's doctors, scientists and guards, especially when the General's people refused to let them take Chuck away for the testing. That escalated to pissed off when they said that they had Director Graham's authorisation as if that overruled any objections, and they were told that Director Graham had no authority to authorise _anything_ with regard to this member of General Beckman's team.

Things just kept getting worse for them after that, because the General's doctors forbid any physical examination or testing of Chuck (which they had been planning to use to cover up implanting devices to monitor and track him, and provide a kill switch as well), citing that that was irrelevant to the Intersect, and all they would allow them to do was monitor his brain activity while they were showing Chuck images intended to trigger Intersect flashes.

They were getting more and more frustrated because this wasn't telling them anything new, and when he worked out that Chuck was getting flashes telling him that some of them were agents rather than scientists, one of the agents suddenly announced that it was time to start the next tests, waving at the equipment on a trolley in the corner.

Chuck was punch drunk from continuous flashes he was getting hit with in the testing, and he was having trouble getting Sarah and John to understand what he was saying about the agents because whenever he tried to speak they flashed another image at him, but that and the tells from the agents planted in Graham's team were enough to tip them off and they moved in. Sarah was demanding to know exactly what these 'next tests' were before anyone touched their charge so the agent started waffling about it being nothing more than applying mild electrical stimuli to various parts of the subject's brain and observing the results while the others kept trying to apply the electrodes to Chuck.

John's alarm bells were going off, so he grabbed the electrodes that they were trying to fix to Chuck's head and slapped them onto the head of the one who was doing all the talking, barking. _"Hit it!"_ (No-one else had noticed that Sarah had seen what he was doing and positioned herself near the machine.)

A few seconds later the 'scientist' was twitching uncontrollably on the floor and John was ripping the straps off Chuck as he bellowed. "This testing is _OVER!_ "

Seeing what this 'test' equipment they'd been trying to use on Chuck was doing to the man on the floor, Sarah stopped anyone getting to the machine to turn the current off, so the 'scientist' was well and truly fried by the time John had released Chuck and carried him out of the room, because no-one was willing to risk touching the wires while they were live after seeing what it was doing to him, and Sarah only turned it off as she went to follow Casey and Chuck out of the room... Robin covered their exit and then followed them.

Before they left, John barked at the NSA guards with them to take _all_ of them into custody and get the full details of who they were and what their orders were out of them, and also to get NSA techs in to examine all of this equipment to find out _exactly_ what it was intended to do.

* * *

They didn't have any trusted doctors around DC, so Di told John to get him back to Tipton Field and had Ellie and Leo Dreyfus heading for Tipton Field as fast as possible in a Shadow as soon as John told her what had happened.

Ellie and Leo gave Chuck a clean bill of health, and once she was _sure_ that he was OK and Leo had given him a mild sedative to make him rest, Sarah left him in their care and slipped out to go to Aunt Jane's house to retrieve her CIA medals and the other pictures and papers she'd been keeping safe for her (Jane had been a good operative, so very few people would be able to find the safe that she had Sarah's things hidden in, and even fewer could break into it if they found it, but Sarah had everything she needed to get in and out quickly without being seen or detected). It was better this way, because her visiting Aunt Jane later that night to collect her things as they'd planned would have shown that they still had a connection and put Aunt Jane in Graham's cross hairs.

If he looked at the situation logically, Graham would understand that he needed Jane Bentley, because she had been the most effective Deputy Director of Operations in living memory for the CIA and she was no less effective as the Director of the National Clandestine Service, as the role had been known by since late Oh Five. After losing control of Sarah and the Human Intersect, and what happened at the Intersect Facility today though…. none of them were willing to bet on the fact that Graham _would_ be rational _or_ logical. Having his plans fail so spectacularly at both the Human Intersect meeting and the Intersect facility would have him scrabbling to ensure that nothing could come back on him, and desperate to strike out at _someone_ …. but while General Diane Beckman seemed untouchable at the moment, the Director of the National Clandestine Service might not be so safe.

Chuck had recovered enough to convince Sarah, with Ellie and Leo's help, that he would be fine to come to the meeting with Carina and Zondra by the time they needed to go to the meeting, so they got ready in quarters on the base and headed out.

* * *

At the restaurant, Carina and Zondra took one look at Sarah's skirt suit and expression as she arrived and knew that this wasn't an 'I missed you, let's party!' visit, so she was greeted with. "What are you up to Blondie?"

"What, no 'Sarah, where have you been, we've missed you!' ?"

"Yeah, all of that, now tell us why you're dressed like that and why you arrived with Casey and those other two!"

Sarah laughed, but there was little humour in it. "I love you too Zondra! I've missed this, well like a hole in the head, but I _have_ missed the two of you!"

Carina leant in to kiss her on the cheek, whispering in her ear. "What about tall, dark and gruesome and the leggy bitches over there and those other agents? Are they with you or after you?" (Auntie Di had everyone she had in DC, on the books and off, in the restaurant in case Graham tried anything.)

Sarah's lips meeting hers was rather a surprise, as that had always been something that made Sarah uncomfortable before, but Sarah shrugged, murmuring. "Sorry Red, someone's lesbian best friends were part of the package deal I took with the new gig and some things are changing in a hurry, but in answer to your question, they're with us, they're part of our... backup singers."

"OK, who are you and what have you done with Sarah Walker? I think I might keep you though, you're way more fun."

Sarah smiled mysteriously but sat forward and looked a little more serious. "So, are you two still screwing drug lords and chasing nickel and dime gang bangers most of the time?"

They looked at her until Carina growled disgustedly. "You know we are! What's your point?"

"Would you like to change that?"

 _That_ got their attention. "What are you saying?"

"Just what I said Zee, do you want to get away from what you're doing now, or not?"

Carina and Zondra looked at each other and Zondra said. "Of course we do! What games are you playing Blondie?"

"No games Zee, if you want out of your current lives, my new boss wants to talk to you."

They just looked at her as she stood up. "Well, come on! Do you want to talk to her or not?"

They scrambled to their feet and followed her to the private room that John, Chuck and Robin had gone into.

The two women noted the way the three at the table in the back and the other agents they'd identified around the room followed their every movement as they crossed the restaurant, without losing track of anything else going on in the restaurant… which said that the people in these people Sarah was working with were good. When they reached the room, Sarah knocked once and went straight in, closing the door behind them. There were four people in the room, only one of whom they knew, John Casey.

* * *

The younger man and woman who'd come in with Sarah and Casey were sitting at the table, and Carina noted the look that passed between Sarah and the guy as she entered, smirking to herself at the thought that she could have some fun here. She caught the look on Sarah's face when she headed for him though and abruptly changed direction to head for a seat across the table from him, because while winding up an angry Sarah was all part of the fun, actually _hurting_ her was something else altogether! Sarah actually looked vulnerable and defensive when she sat down next to the guy, and that was another first!

As Casey and Sarah's mystery man were 'he's and the woman who came in with them was too young to be this mysterious 'boss', it must be the last person in the room. On the face of it, the little red headed fiftyish woman didn't _look_ that impressive, but she _had_ to be powerful if she'd managed to get both the best of the CIA _and_ the best of the NSA on her team.

The woman had obviously caught what was going through Carina's mind at least, because she launched straight into it. "Agent Miller, Agent Rizzo, nice of you to join us. Please, have a seat."

As soon as everyone was seated, the woman went on. "Thank you for coming ladies, I am General Diane Beckman, and as you will have by now worked out, Agent Walker, Major Casey, Major Cunnings and Mister Bartowski work for me. We are creating a new multi agency team, and we would like to invite you to join us."

Carina and Zondra exchanged a look at that, because while they may not have known her by sight, they certainly knew the name. "What can you tell us about this group General?"

"Not a great deal until after you've joined us I'm afraid, because just about everything to do with it is classified way above your current security clearances. We currently have high level CIA, NSA and DCS agents" (waving at Sarah, Casey and Robin) "working with a top level information specialist," (waving at Chuck) "and we've been cleared to add high level DEA and FBI agents as well. As I said, we'd like the two of you to be those agents."

She exchanged a look with Sarah and continued. "One thing I _can_ promise you is that you will never be ordered or requested to sleep with anyone for a mission, nor will you be expected to risk getting yourself killed over anything inconsequential. Some of our missions will be dangerous, yes, but we'll be dealing with serious targets and making a difference."

The two women shared a look again and Carina spoke up. "That sounds like a wonderful opportunity General, and I certainly hope that Agent Rizzo will be able to take you up on your offer, but unfortunately I don't see any chance of the DEA releasing me, because I've proven to be too... useful to them."

The General looked at her sympathetically. "Do you _want_ to join us Agent Miller?"

"Sorry Ma'am, didn't I make that clear? _Yes!_ I would love to join your group General."

The woman nodded at that, and looking down, picked up one of the documents on the table in front of her and held it out it to Carina. "I don't really think that anyone will be able to stop you then, do you Agent Miller?"

Zondra was leaning forward to try and see what Carina had read that had shocked her so badly, but the General offered her the other document. When she'd looked at the document in her hands, she looked up with the same expression as Carina. "Is this real?"

Sarah answered her with a smile, the first time she'd looked cheerful since she got there. "Yes Zee, you should have seen Graham's face when the DNI forced him to accept mine."

Zondra turned to her, stunned, doing a double take when she saw that she was openly holding that guy's hand. She shook that off and said. "Just to be clear here Blondie, we're talking about the Director of National Intelligence of the United States of America... right?"

Sarah nodded. "Yep!"

Zondra shared a look with Carina then looked back at the General. "Well in that case General, it looks like you have your DEA and FBI agents…. so when do we get to find out about Lover Boy here?"

Diane looked confused until she saw their joined hands and frowned, then smirked as she saw a chance to move her plan along here, so she said. "Your behaviour begs a question Mister Bartowski, what _are_ your intentions towards Agent Walker?"

Chuck looked at Sarah and said softly… "Very long term if she'll have me!" (They should have known better than to ask Anna to keep the fact that they were getting her to confirm that the CIA's rules for married agents hadn't changed quiet from him.)

Sarah was pissed at Auntie Di for pulling this shit, but elated that Chuck obviously knew what she was doing and was saying just what _she_ wanted to hear! "Oh, she'll have you alright! For ever and ever…. Amen!"

Carina and Zondra were staring at the now kissing couple across the table from them, utterly stunned, and Zondra blurted out. "What the fuck's going on here Blondie?"

When she'd released Chuck's lips, Sarah turned to her and said. "Most of it will have to wait for your clearance Zee, but the unclassified part is…." She pointed at Chuck "This is Charlie!" and then Di "And my Auntie Di." She glanced at Robin, but decided that it wasn't the best time to share _that_.

Both women's heads whipped around at that. "Charlie? _Your_ Charlie, the one you've been moping about since you were a kid?"

Sarah nodded happily and they shook their heads in wonder, but then they processed the second part of what she'd just revealed. "Wait a minute! You talked about your Auntie Di Blondie, but you _never_ mentioned that you were Old Ironpants'… Sorry General…. Niece!"

Diane shook her head with a smile to dismiss the apology, because truth be told she rather liked having that reputation. "Sammie didn't find out herself until she started this assignment Agent Miller, as all she'd ever known me as was her Auntie Di."

Carina glanced towards the door. "What about the backup singers then, can you tell us about _them_ General?"

"Backup singers?"

Sarah said. "Marco and the others."

"Ah…. Yes. Some of them will be going to Los Angeles with you to be part of the security company that's Major Casey's cover job, and perhaps your's as well. They will also be part of the support team we have on hand for the core team that you'll be part of. They are mostly off the books as far as any agency is concerned."

Di looked at her existing team and at their nods turned back to the two women. "As stated in those documents, this will be a permanent assignment unless you choose to go back to your agencies, and you may also resign at any time you wish. Once you have transferred, you will not be under the authority of your agencies at all, you will _only_ accept orders from me, and in turn I only report to the DNI and the President. You will be based in Los Angeles with the rest of the team. So…. For the record, do you, Agent Miller, and you, Agent Rizzo, choose to join our team?"

When they both nodded and eagerly said "Yes, Ma'am!" she nodded and said "Good! Now we've had a change of plans I'm afraid, I _was_ going to have you meet us tomorrow to fly to California together once I had your transfers processed, but due to incidents which occurred today the team are flying out tonight. Therefore you will be taken home to pack whatever you need in the interim, and then straight to Tipton Field."

She handed over some paperwork. "Fill out and sign these please ladies, and we'll have our people arrange for agency removalists to ship the rest of your belongings to you in California."

She kept talking as they started filling out the paperwork she'd given them. "I will get my people working on getting your transfers, clearances and the rest processed tomorrow and bring them with me when I follow you, but you'll be going back tonight with the team and the… what was it? Oh yes, the backup singers. Are there any questions ladies?"

When they shook their heads she went on. "Well in that case I will see you when I get to Los Angeles, enjoy your flight." She collected the Presidential orders and the rest of her paperwork and John and Robin escorted her out to hand her over to her protective detail.

* * *

When she'd left, the two women turned to Sarah and Carina pretty much repeated Zondra's question. "What the fuck Blondie? What the hell's going on here?"

She beamed at her. "You've just joined a team that makes the CAT Squad look ordinary Red!"

Zondra jumped in because Carina still looked a little dazed "What…." She stopped in frustration as she realised that most of what she wanted to ask about was going to have to wait until her clearance had been upgraded, but as Sarah had already said there was one thing she _could_ talk about, so she said "For a start, explain _this_!" as she waved at the two of them.

Sarah beamed again (OK, that was going to get old real quick!). "Graham sent me to California to recover something that Larkin stole and sent to a supposed accomplice…."

Carina broke in at that. "Yeah, sorry about that Sarah, we never talked about him because of your rule about not discussing our sex lives, but it must have been a kick in the guts to have him betray you like that after the two of you had been together for so long…."

Sarah cut her off angrily. "Larkin and I were _never_ together like that Carina! Casey did me a huge favour when he shot that bastard down like the vermin he was!"

They whipped their heads around to stare at Casey, who'd just walked back in with Robin, at that, but turned back to her as she continued.

"Most of the stories about Larkin and me would have come from the crap he made up to try and make himself look like a big man Red, and the rest would have just been his sleazy buddies' pathetic little fantasies about what they'd like to do to me, you, and any other woman that they can't get anywhere near in the real world. Larkin was nothing but a totally useless shit who spent more time trying to get into my pants than he did on our mission objectives even though…."

She stopped and glanced at Chuck before she turned to Carina. "Red, you're supposed to be the expert on all things sexual, did you ever get a gay vibe from Larkin?"

Carina frowned as she thought about it. "Are you kidding? The Golden Boy, gay? Come on, he screwed more women than….." She was running every encounter she'd ever had with Bryce Larkin through her head, as she also had a near perfect memory, and being a brainless bimbo was just as much an act as supposedly enjoying being the DEA's go to sexbot had been. "No…. You're right! He was very convincing, but it was always the cute guys who caught his eye first, not the women."

She saw the _'Told ya!'_ look Chuck sent Sarah and her eyes widened, oh no, she finally gets him back and he's fucking _gay_? But what about...? Sarah read the looks crossing over her face. "Oh hell no! Larkin was Chuck's room mate at Stanford, so he had to put up with Larkin trying to come on to him, but Chuck's best friend called it the moment she met him."

That last made Carina send her a questioning look and she nodded. So her dream guy's best friend is a lesbian? Curiouser and curiouser cried Alice.

With that out of the way, Sarah continued. "So I get to Los Angeles and engage the target, the woman who let me in calls for him and he comes out, totally engrossed in reading something as he's walking and then he looks up and it's Charlie! We were babbling on for a while, trying to catch up on the last eighteen years, but then I heard people running in the back office. I thought that he must have been keeping me occupied until reinforcements could arrive, so I was getting ready to fight it out when Mama ran into the room!"

"But I thought you said that Graham had her under lock and key to keep you under control?"

She nodded grimly. "That was what the bastard always told me, but he _never_ had her! So that's where we are, we've got this new group set up in Los Angeles and you'll be working with us now."

Carina and Zondra were shaking their heads, but Carina turned to Chuck. "So Chuckie, how about you guys giving us some time to catch up with our girl here?"

Her response came from Sarah. "Carina, no! We've only been back together for less than a week, we can have a girls' night to catch up once things have settled down, and besides that we need to get out of DC ASAP!"

That had them staring at her again, Zondra found her voice first. "All of this has happened in less than a week? How the fuck did _that_ happen? And what's the big hurry to get out of DC? You rob a bank or something?"

Sarah glanced at Chuck and Casey before turning back to her. "How it happened is part of what you're not cleared for yet Zee, but the need to get out of town in a hurry is because we've crossed Graham in a big way, twice in a week now... And he was seriously pissed the first time so I don't want to think what he'll be like now. That's why we have all the backup singers out there."

Carina and Zondra froze at that, because it was commonly held that crossing Graham was tantamount to suicide. There were no further questions after that, they just grabbed their bags and got the hell out of there. It didn't take them long to pack what they'd need until the rest of their things could be shipped over and they handed the keys and the finalised paperwork for that to the ones who would be remaining in DC.

* * *

They wanted to ask questions when they were just waved though the gates at some military airfield up near Fort Meade... what the hell was the Special Projects and Tactical Research Group?... and hustled aboard a stubby little airliner in the livery of the airline that many believed was a front for one of the big intelligence agencies, and they knew for a fact provided private extraction services to operatives who knew how to contact them, because Zondra had called them to get the CATS out of a bad spot after the Bimbo set them up... but they waited until they were in the air and everybody had visibly relaxed for that. The questions about what happened at the gate and the plane were answered by John saying that that while they allowed some other military aircraft to use the airfield, Tipton Field was actually _their_ base... but Emerald Air wasn't a front for anyone's intelligence organisation but their own. "As Walker said, you'll have to for until your clearances to hear the rest of that, but this group has had people operating all over the world outside of the three letter agencies since Ninety at least, and Emerald Air is part of their support infrastructure... And as you already know..." Nodding at Zondra. "They also provide a freelance extraction service for a fee to those who are trusted enough to have their contact details."

Everyone needed a drink after that, so they broke out the food and drink and settled down for the flight back to LA, spending the time catching up. It was a surprise to find out that the lead pilot was this lesbian best friend, and to see how the 'backup singers' deferred to her and Chuck, as they were obviously experienced agents.

It didn't take Carina long to get drunk and morose and she tried to clear the air with Casey. "Johnny, about that picture, it wasn't me who sent it to everyone, I promise you! I don't even know who it was."

Zondra smirked at that. "Why didn't you ask Red? I do! It was the Bimbo, she was pissed because Casey just turned her down flat, and then went home with you. She was crowing about how she'd shown him, because she sent it to everyone she knew after you sent it to us."

She looked at Casey. "Sorry Casey, but I was seriously pissed at you at the time because of what you said to Red."

Carina looked at him hesitantly. "Are we good Johnny?"

He smiled as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. "Of course we are!"

* * *

Zondra was looking relieved for Carina but she also looked as though she felt a little left out. Sarah picked up on that and chuckled evilly. "Do you think Zee would be Jeff's type Charlie?"

Chuck spluttered into his drink at that, because he knew that Zondra had generally steered clear of guys after what she had gone through when she was young and Zondra worked out enough from that to give Sarah a _'You'll be paying for that bitch!'_ look, which just got a grin from her.

"Hey, pretty much everyone else is taken, and you better stay away from my stepfather if you know what's good for you!"

To keep up the act, Chuck explained that Jeff was actually a great guy, but he was a little older and he'd probably be too tame for her anyway, while Sarah's stepfather had been known to both of them as Uncle Bry their whole lives, and he'd married Sarah's mother a few years ago. He stopped and looked at Sarah and Robin then and they nodded after they stopped to think about it, because the girls were more mellow and likely to accept what they heard like this. With that they launched into the story about how Robin was actually Sarah's stepsister, and she had another seventeen year old stepsister as well now, and a seventeen year old cousin too for that matter. They stared at her at that, whispering. "Ironpants'?" and she nodded with a smile, but looked a question at Casey, and when he nodded his permission she added. "Casey has an eighteen year old daughter too, and Chuck has a seventeen year old half sister as well as his older sister now."

When Sarah dropped the bombshell that _Chuck_ had twin fourteen year old daughters though, they were so stunned that she grabbed her phone to get a picture of it. Zondra came out of it first and looked calculatingly at Chuck but Sarah shook her head. "No Zee, you heard me right when I told you about him, Charlie _is_ only six months older than me, but he started young, _real_ young! The girls' mother is actually one of Chuck's lesbian best friends, they wanted to experiment when their hormones were kicking in as they went into their teens and Charlie agreed because they meant, _mean_ , a lot to him but Lou got pregnant. Her father dragged her off to Israel as soon as he found out about it and she only got to bring the girls back at Christmas Two Thousand. Ellie says that this one almost fainted when Lou introduced him to his daughters…." she added "Ellie is Nora, Chuck's big sister I told you about, they had to have their names changed when they were kids" when she saw the question on their faces.

As the explanations proceeded though, Zondra was getting more and more suspicious because she was seeing way too many parallels to the people who'd rescued her from that past life that Sarah and Carina didn't know about, including the plane they were on. She knew that Casey was part of that group, and she was beginning to suspect she knew who Sarah's Charlie was too, which Chuck confirmed by giving her one of the signals he used to identify himself when he was in disguise. She let the cat out of the bag then by blurting out. "Are you fucking kidding me? You were only _twelve_?"

That had Sarah and Carina staring at her in confusion. Chuck cleared that up for Sarah at least by saying. "Zondra is one of the ones I told you about when I was explaining how I came to be the Piranha."

The confusion lifted from Sarah's face, but it was almost instantly replaced by horror as she realised what that meant for Zondra, and she rushed to hug her.

While they were that close, Zondra whispered in her ear. "You _do_ know he's the Chameleon, don't you Blondie?"

Sarah nodded and whispered back. "Yes, that came out the first night when they were filling me in on what I'd missed since my father took me away."

"He wasn't part of the team that got me out, but I found out later that he had planned and directed the entire operation, and he came to see me a number of times at their base outside New York to help me work out what I wanted to do with my life and came up with the background and plan I needed to get into the FBI a few years later so I could go after other bastards like the ones who took me when I was thirteen. It was a major head fuck when I found out that the girl that I'd poured my heart out to on his first few visits was actually a guy, the Chameleon, but that was _nothing_ on finding out just now that he planned and executed a global operation like that and did everything else when he was just fucking _twelve_!... You've got yourself one hell of a guy there Blondie, but watch yourself with him, he can talk anyone into or out of absolutely _anything_... The first time I met him as a guy, I was ready to hand him my panties and let him do whatever he wanted to me by the time he left, and I was still recovering from my time with the slavers! He was just being nice to me and helping me deal with everything that had happened to me but he's the only guy I've ever considered doing _anything_ with after what those bastards did to me for three years. I think he'd give Montgomery, the CIA's Seduction Master, a run for his money!"

Sarah snorted softly. "Well Uncle Roan _did_ say that Chuck was the best student he's ever had. Given that Chuck was only nine when he started training him and the way that brain of his he soaks up everything he's taught like a sponge, I can't say I'm too surprised about that."

" _What the fuck_? Ironpants is your Aunt, the Seduction Master is your _Uncle..._ What's next? Are you going to tell me that you're related to Graham _too_?"

"Auntie Di is Mama's sister and Uncle Roan is as good as our uncle. Charlie and I have been calling him that all our lives because he and Auntie Di have been together since before I was born, and he _is_ my cousin's father. If I wasn't so glad to have the two of you safe with us I'd kick your arse for that Graham comment, but you'll hear a lot of other names you know tomorrow... Fuck it, Red will have to wait until she sobers up to hear this, but Auntie Mary, Charlie's mother, is Frost, and you would have heard of her as Akela as well. Uncle Bry, my new stepfather, is better known as Bagheera, Charlie's sister Ellie is Raksha, Casey is Baloo, Uncle Roan is Mysa and Anna in the cockpit is better known as Rikki..." She nodded at the question Zondra started to ask. "Yes, that _does_ mean that Charlie is Mowgli Zee, as well as the Chameleon and the hacker known as the Piranha. Anna is well known in hacker circles as the Lotus too, but I only know about those names from Charlie and my friend Pete..."

She looked over at Chuck and decided to fill Zondra in on some of what she'd learned on the way to DC. "This is a global organisation that has more resources at their disposal than most countries Zee... in fact... you know how one of our briefs in the CATS was to dig up whatever we could find about the arms dealer Dimitri Volkovich and an ex Soviet Bloc country called Gordia?"

Zondra nodded. "Well _Chuck_ is Dimitri Volkovich and Gordia is the country he made up using the old Slavic term for a fortified settlement for the Volkovich persona and the rest of their party on an operation in early Ninety Six because so many countries have appeared, disappeared and reappeared under different names over there since the Soviet Union shattered the way it did that it's impossible to know all of them...So saying that they were from a small ex-Soviet Bloc country was the perfect way to remain untraceable and they've kept using the Volkovich identity since then because it worked so well, so effectively _they're_ Gordia. They have at least seven or eight thousand people in the group, and from what I've been told at least a quarter of them are like the ones who got us out that time you called for help. This is just one of over a hundred and fifty of these _Smiliners_ and one of the _several_ hundred planes and helicopters they have, ranging from high capacity utility planes and helicopters to tanker aircraft and heavy lift strategic and tactical transports and supersonic jets... they have _seventy six_ supersonic jets that can do over Mach Two Point Seven Zee, and six of them can do over Mach _Three_! Oh, and they also have three modified XV Fifteens, six modified Ospreys and three _other_ tilt rotors that are a lot bigger as well!..."

"And on top of that, they have fifty eight big... I'm talking between three hundred and eight hundred and twenty feet long with all but seventeen over five hundred feet... ships based on landing ships, landing dock ships, amphibious assault ships and tankers, all of which have been seriously modified and upgraded, plus six LCU Sixteen Forty Sixes, ninety six aluminium LCM Eight landing craft, eight French CTM landing craft and twelve of the Russian Serna fast landing craft that are also upgraded, forty eight LCT Five or Six _ferries_... _and_ a fucking submarine! They managed to get the old Barbel after it was decommissioned and rebuilt it into an improved amphibious assault sub!... They've also got another six, hundred and eighty foot converted ex Soviet Tarantul class corvettes, a three hundred and ten foot icebreaker and four more that are two hundred and seventy feet, eighteen, two hundred and ten foot rescue and salvage ships and fourteen, hundred and ten foot tugs from World War Two at their bases around the world. Chuck described them as if they were just boring old work boats but from the file he's kept about why they fixed them up and maintain them, half of them did more in World War Two and subsequent wars than most warships did... Oh, and they also have six improved SOC Five boats, twelve improved SOC Riverine boats, a pile of airborne combat vehicles, weapons that you wouldn't believe and hundreds of off road trucks like the ones they retrieved us with... And if having their own Army, Navy and Air Force wasn't enough, they also have the cream of the world's intelligence communities... That's why Auntie Di is confident about making a difference, because they've been on top of the game since Nineteen Ninety!..."

"This is my _family_ Zee, but I can hardly believe what I'm hearing about everything they've done since my father took me away... Oh, and here's the real kicker, as Chuck pointed out, _I_ was the reason they started all of this! After my father took me away, Mama went off looking for me and Graham sent Auntie Mary into Russia and set her up to be killed because she wouldn't go and drag Mama back to the CIA. Then Uncle Stefan did something stupid and dangerous because he mistakenly thought it was safe and it started to fry his brain. Auntie Di, Uncle Bry and all of Mama and Auntie Mary's friends had apparently gotten together by then and decided to create this organisation to get the resources they'd need to find Mama and me and get Auntie Mary, Chuck, Ellie and Uncle Stefan to safety... So all of this pretty much came about because my bastard of a father took me away from Mama and everyone else who loved me to use me as bait for his cons..."

Zondra was shaking her head. "What the hell have you gotten us into Blondie?"

"A group that has the power and collective ability to stand our world on its head Zee, _and_ the power to protect us from all those sick bastards who want to use us any way they feel like it, but you already know that, after they saved you and gave you a new life."

That got a nod, but Zondra suddenly stopped and angrily asked. "If Montgomery's like your uncle, why the hell didn't he get you out of this shit when you went to the seduction school at the Farm?"

"Because I _didn't_ go to seduction school Zee! I'm pretty sure Graham was deliberately keeping me away from Uncle Roan to prevent him trying to help me get away like he did Carina a few years earlier when he found out about what they were doing to her, because I was sent elsewhere whenever he was at the Farm. Graham had very different training planned for me anyway, which he knew that Uncle Roan would have definitely tried to stop if he got wind of it, because that's what he tried to rescue Carina from."

Zondra pulled back to look at her. "You mean?..."

Sarah nodded grimly. "Yes, I was given very in depth and hands on training in as many filthy and perverted sex acts as they could squeeze into the time available. The only reason I gave in to that was because that bastard threatened to make me watch while Mama was being put through it in my stead if I didn't..."

It was Zondra's turn to cry and hug Sarah then, but Sarah whispered that it was alright because Charlie was helping her get over that and she just nodded.

To bring Carina and Sarah up to speed on her real situation, Zondra explained that she had been taken by a sex slave ring when she was barely thirteen, but their big money customers had apparently liked the way she stayed a pretty little thing with enough spirit to put up a fight because they'd been making sure she wasn't marked too badly and moving her around their up market establishments in America and Mexico for almost three years by the time the group that Chuck and Casey were part of took down the slave ring and rescued her and the others in her position. She also told how the group, and in particular Chuck in his various guises, had looked after her while she healed, then set her up with a whole new life that stood up to all checks and fast tracked her getting into the FBI a few years later with the high school diploma and degrees she needed so she could go after others like the slave ring who'd had her.

Carina was well and truly plastered by then but she understood that what Zondra was talking about was really important, so she decided that the questions she wanted to ask about all of that, along with all those planes and helicopters she saw in their hangars at El Monte Airport... and the hangars themselves for that matter... would all be better left until she was sober enough to make more sense of the answers.

* * *

Given the state that Carina especially was in, when they got back to El Castillo they just showed them to the apartment that would be their's until they found somewhere they wanted to stay. The first thing Chuck did when they were alone was make sure that Sarah understood just what he'd done for Zondra and some of the others that they'd rescued. Sarah told him that she'd pieced it together from Zondra's significant pauses and what Ellie had told her when she first arrived. She could hardly complain about him doing that when he didn't know whether he'd ever see her again, especially as the main reason he did it was to help those girls heal, so she reassured him that it was alright and went on to what to her was a more important question, because this was the first chance they had had to talk in private about what was said at the restaurant.

"Did you mean it, what you said?"

Chuck nodded. "Of course! I know that they've all been telling you about how I searched for you every day that you were away because I was empty without you…. Well now that you're back, I want you to stay with me! Auntie Di was a bitch to pull that stunt in front of Carina and Zondra, but Anna showed me those rules she asked her to look up on the quiet, so I understand why she was pushing for it, she wants to make sure you're safe, just like I do… Did _you_ mean what you said?"

" _YES!_ I've been dreaming about being be back with you ever since Papa took me away, in fact…. When we were in the bunker, I was looking at Ellie's achievements and thought 'this is one hell of a family I'm marrying into!' I tried to tell myself that I didn't mean that, but I lost that argument damned quick because I don't ever want to be apart from you again! So yes! If you'll have me, I'm your's Charlie!"

Carina especially would have been shocked to know what Sarah was joyously doing that night, because they'd watched her put just about every man who tried to do that with her in hospital or in the ground for two years, and many of them hadn't been being aggressive, just insistent. The smart ones had avoided injury by running away while they could, the lucky ones got off lightly, but most of them got hurt, bad.

* * *

Come morning, when Zondra finally got Carina out of bed, they went looking for Sarah. While she was happy and relieved to have them there, especially Carina because the DEA had continually been putting her in positions where she would most likely be raped and beaten, and potentially killed, Sarah did _not_ appreciate having to tell her to ' _Go back and put some fucking clothes on!_ '. Carina was obviously back in the space of trying to wind up Sarah by getting a rise out of Chuck and the other guys, because she was just wearing a flimsy robe (Sarah didn't want to think about what she was, or wasn't, wearing under that robe).

Zondra just shook her head at Carina as she scuttled out, because she'd _told_ her that she was going to piss Sarah off if she tried to play that game here, but she took the opportunity to try and explain what Sarah had discussed with Chuck the night before. Sarah just reassured her the way she had Chuck that she understood and was glad that Chuck had been able to help her heal.

When Carina returned, more appropriately dressed and looking genuinely contrite, Sarah started in on her, telling her in no uncertain terms _NOT_ to try and play her games around her fiancé or Rick Noble, Rocky Johnson, Benjie, Sam Colt, Albert Laurent... or Skip for that matter. If she wanted to have fun with Casey, Jeff or the other guys that was their business, but if she stepped on any of the other women's turf she was liable to get her arse kicked.

Carina was staring at her in shock, they both were actually. "You were _serious_ about that? I thought you two were just pissing about!"

"Have you forgotten that we were kept apart for over _eighteen_ fucking years Red? I'm not ready to risk losing him again and Chuck says he feels the same way, so _yes_ , we were fucking serious! Auntie Di thinks that she's managed to manoeuvre us into getting married to protect me from seduction missions, because Auntie Mary told them about the old rules that are still on the books which forbid forcing married women into seduction missions or having to do anything of the sort with their partners, but Chuck knew about that because they got Anna to make sure they still applied… but we're getting married because we can't stand the idea of being separated again, not because of anything anyone else said!… Speaking of Auntie Mary….. The reason Rick is off limits is that he and Ellie are a couple and he'll be my brother in law one day. Ellie is one of the sweetest people I know, but she's _also_ a Navy SEAL with one hell of a temper, so you _don't_ want to cross her Red! And Auntie Mary? You've heard of her, as _Frost_ , _and_ Akela! For that matter Auntie Phoebe, Rick and Rocky's Mom, is six foot two of piss and vinegar who used to be better known as Cleopatra Jones! You _don't_ want to fuck with my family Red, if you push them too far you won't come out alive! and for all the fact that you all too often put on that stupid skank act to piss people off, I do love you, so I _don't_ want you dead! Rocky's married to Zoe and they have a son, Benjie, who's too young for you and is going out with Casey's daughter Alex... Sam's Robin's partner, Albert is Bai's partner... and Skip's off limits because he's gay and it would just upset him, he's too nice to have to put up with that."

Carina was staring at her, but she laughed at that. "Ellie... a _SEAL_? Come on Blondie, it was working up until you tried _that_!"

When that made Sarah snarl at her, she was asking herself why the fuck she'd opened her mouth. "Just try her Red! She'll wipe the floor with you…. she always needs more sparring partners actually because not many can keep up with her. Have you ever heard of _Raksha_ Red?" Carina nodded hesitantly. "Well Ellie _is_ Raksha!"

Carina looked at Chuck and asked. "If your sister is Raksha and your mother is Frost, who the fuck are _you_ Chuckie?"

Sarah gave her an evil smile. "I would have thought that that was obvious Red… Chuck is _Mowgli..._ and in case you didn't get it last night on the plane, he's also the Chameleon and the Piranha. He's a SEAL too…. and while we're filling you in on the team, Casey is Baloo, Uncle Bry is Bagheera, Uncle Roan is Mysa and Anna is Rikki, Chuck calls her his pint sized pit bull but I wouldn't suggest _you_ try that because from what I've seen she can almost certainly kick your arse too… And Rick is Daruka... _Now_ are you starting to see what you've joined?"

Carina was staring at her, nodding slowly, but something else occurred to her. "What about your Mama Sarah? She's obviously one of these people too so who is she?"

Sarah shook her head with a smile. "Mama isn't involved in that side of things much, thank god, but she _was_ a legend in her day, as the Fox, the best analyst the CIA ever had, she generally works on the Information Dominance side of things with Ellie, Skip and Jeff. Chuck, Anna and Auntie Mary work on that side too. Auntie Di commands both sides of the team."

Carina had been reduced to standing there, shaking her head, so Sarah gave an evil grin and said that they may as well see the Dungeon now and led them to the lift.

When they came out of the elevator on B2 and saw the operations centre, Carina and Zondra's 'What the _fuck_?'s tumbled out as one.

Zondra shook her head as she looked at Carina and said "I don't think we're in Kansas any more Toto!" and matched Carina's grin when she replied "Who are you calling a dog, bitch?"

Neither they or Sarah could understand why the others all burst out laughing at that, until Chuck put the image of the poster they had in the Emerald Air offices up on the screen. It was of Dorothy getting off an Emerald Air transport at some remote airfield with Toto in her arms and looking around, and that was the caption across the bottom.

Chuck grinned and said. "Dorothy's line is actually the unofficial slogan of Emerald Air... It's an inside joke though because we only have these up in the back offices."

Zondra facetiously suggested. "Why don't you add 'Emerald Air, National Airline of Gordia' then?"

That got a laugh from most of them and Chuck nodded. "That's a good idea, I think I will.", but they had to explain what Sarah had told Zondra about Gordia on the plane to Carina, who was beginning to get pissed off about just how much she'd missed because she was so drunk on the plane.

While they were blown away by the operations centre, Carina and Zondra reacted to the armoury the same way the all the other operatives did, running from one piece of deadly hardware to the next like kids in a candy store.

They did ask why were most of markings on the weapons and equipment still in Cyrillic though? The argument that they'd obtained the weapons etc via the connections that Mary had made in the time when she was trapped in Alexei Volkoff's world was accepted, as that made sense, but the idea that a fairly large and diverse group of Americans could _all_ read Cyrillic well enough that there was no need to relabel everything? That didn't fly anywhere near as well. While they accepted the explanation given, their expressions said that they wouldn't stop until they worked out what the real story behind this was.

* * *

General Diane Beckman was rather testy by the time she arrived late the next afternoon, because her people had spent the last day questioning the ones they arrested at the Intersect facility yesterday and examining the equipment (especially the device which had electrocuted Graham's agent), trying to find some proof that Graham had been behind it, but the bastard had covered his tracks too well.

Even with the video recordings her people had been taking throughout, all of the _official_ evidence that they were able to uncover pointed to the agent who died at least being a Fulcrum plant, and Graham's scientists were sticking to the story that they hadn't known half of the people there, so how were they supposed to know that the agents weren't scientists from another area? Her people had reported that they'd just looked smug and shrugged when they were told that they would have had to be totally incompetent not to see that those men weren't scientists, because being incompetent wasn't enough to get them charged with anything, and they worked for Graham, so they wouldn't be getting fired either.

They'd even had to release Graham's surviving agents, because their official orders had been to provide covert security for the testing, and they couldn't get away with questioning them more…. _Strenuously_ …. because this issue was attracting a lot of attention and too many people were watching. The one who was fried had supposedly been the only one who had known all the details of the plan to eliminate Chuck, and officially as far as the others knew that machine was just one of the props they were using to pretend to be scientists.

Most of the equipment had been legitimate test equipment, it was just that one device which had been doctored to make it look as though it malfunctioned because it had been damaged by a power spike or something when Larkin blew up the facility, but there was nothing obviously wrong with it. Her techs had found a switch which would have fried the machine and destroyed the evidence, but Sarah had stopped anyone else getting close enough to activate that switch before she turned the machine off.

Their orders had obviously been to find out what made Chuck the only one capable of successfully hosting the Intersect, and then make sure that he had a fatal _accident_ with that machine, but the one who had been fried had been a good enough agent to pick up that Chuck had identified some of them at least, so he'd decided to eliminate Chuck before he could say anything, because they weren't getting anything useful from him anyway.

What it came down to was that even though she knew with absolute certainty that that bastard Graham was behind this, they didn't have any fucking way to _prove_ it! So he was getting away with it! The only thing the evidence really helped with was squashing Graham's charges that John Casey had attacked and murdered one of the men he had there to provide security without cause, because the video showed the man being evasive when questioned and that he had only received what he was doing his best to have inflicted on Chuck, so that video recording, along with the tech's reports about how the machine had been deliberately doctored to electrocute whoever was hooked up to it, proved that John had in fact saved _Chuck_ from being murdered!

Graham wasn't at all happy to see the way Walker had been working with Casey in those recordings either, but he didn't say anything because he was still banking on getting her back under his control. That was the reason he'd ordered Bartowski to be eliminated as soon as the testing was done, because without the Human Intersect there could be no Human Intersect project. The way he saw it, that would make the conditions of that order he had been forced to accept null and void so the CIA could claim her back.

In the end, after she'd spent almost a full day searching in vain for proof of that bastard's guilt and been forced to agree with the DNI and the President that while they all _knew_ that he was guilty as sin, there wasn't a damned thing they could do about it!….

* * *

At least Chuck had sent his personal VIP Smiliner back to pick her up from Ronald Reagan and fly her to LA with her protective detail, because it was big enough to put the protective detail in separate section of the plane and shut them out of the lounge where she was. If she hadn't been able to do that, she would have almost certainly shot one of the dumb shits... Half of them were cute enough that twenty years ago she probably would have had a bed made up quick smart and used them to get rid of some of the tension... Shit, she would have done that fifteen years ago... No... No she wouldn't have. She'd never admit this out loud but taking responsibility for Chuck and Ellie when Stefan put them in her care had changed her for the better. She might have made them work harder than most adults when they were still children but she _did_ love them, and trying to be a better maternal figure for them had made her become a proper mother for Josie... No-one but her father would _ever_ call her Josephine, she loved the man to death but he was too pretentious for his own good much of the time. At least he couldn't do that with their daughter's middle name, because _she'd_ chosen that one, and she gave her the no nonsense name of the toughest woman she knew in the hope that some of that toughness would rub off on her and ease her path through life, Mary Conrad.

About the _only_ thing about the last twenty four hours that cheered her up was the memory of the Administrator of the DEA's face as he was being forced to acknowledge receipt of the Presidential Order to release Carina Miller to the Human Intersect Project, and seeing Mike kick him in the arse to make him execute those orders _now_! Bob was never going to be a problem, he was a good man, and as she knew he would, he'd launched an investigation into how an agent of Zondra Rizzo's calibre had been pushed aside and buried in nickel and dime gang investigations so much of the time since the CAT Squad had been disbanded, as she was doing more important work than that when she first became an agent over a decade ago!

Mind you, it _had_ been a shock when Chuck had told her that Zondra had been one of the lost children. If she ever knew about that she'd forgotten, but then she didn't have Mary, Emma and their children's eidetic memory, so that was entirely possible. She'd often wished that she did have their perfect memories, because it always seemed so easy for them to learn how to do everything perfectly in no time at all and pull obscure but crucial facts that they'd seen somewhere out of the air to solve cases, but Mary had shown her the flip side of that 'gift' when she described _everything_ that Volkoff had done to her in excruciatingly explicit detail when they were trying to convince her to accept Vivian over ten years after the act. She hadn't missed the reason that _she_ was the one who was told all that rather than Emma or Ellie either, because she might be able to forget what she was told, but they wouldn't.

She suddenly smiled as she remembered that there _was_ another thing to be happy about, the fact that she'd managed to manoeuvre Chuck into proposing like that and Sarah into accepting his proposal. Those two would _never_ be happy unless they were together, but if they'd worked out that she was trying to set them up they would have just refused on principle. She hadn't wanted to have to come out and say that marriage would stop Sarah being ordered to be her targets' and partners' fuck toy, but she would have if it came to that…. she was just glad that she didn't have to, as that would have almost certainly gotten messy.

To avoid all the paperwork that damaging one or more of her protective detail would have required, Diane told them all to shut up (because she could still _hear_ the idiots) and slept the rest of the way to LA. She was a little mollified to see John and Jeff waiting with the stretch Towncar and one of Chuck's marvellous Lincoln Continental Stretched Hardtop Convertibles, so she told her protective detail to get in the Towncar with Jeff while she settled into the back of the Continental, the ride to Arcadia wasn't long enough for being crammed into the back of the Towncar to become a problem, even with Jeff going around the block a few times to confuse them about where they were.

* * *

When they arrived in El Castillo, her protective detail tried to argue when they were told to park themselves in the lounge in the Shiloh Security Storage offices while the General went off somewhere else with the people she was calling 'her team', but they were reminded of how she'd gotten the name 'Old Ironpants' when she dressed them down and then stormed off.

Chuck had caught Casey's expression as Carina and Zondra were asking questions about the Cyrillic markings and saw that the fact that he'd held off asking about that himself didn't mean that he hadn't been thinking it, and that didn't bode well for keeping the relationships they'd had to date. He could also see the other questions that Carina at least didn't know enough to ask yet going through his head, like just how had this group of extraordinary people come together? A few at this level coming together, that's life, but a group _this_ big? That had to be planned.

When Auntie Di came down to the Dungeon, he dragged her off to a meeting room with Sarah and the core family members to discuss how they were going to handle the fact that John, Carina and Zondra all knew that they weren't being told the whole truth about the team and that was bound to come back and bite them in the arse down the track. It didn't take long to agree that they needed to tell them what was going on, and Mary, Roan and Charly all agreed that it would be best to tell them that they'd been sleepers when they came to America too.

In a way it was the best time to do this, because they had all of the core team there (Stefan didn't count in something like this), as they had called most of their best people in from around the country when Sammie arrived and they started preparing for a fight with Graham, so they could just sit everyone down and lay it all out. John in particular would most probably have an issue with how many of them were Russian defectors (he saw things a little too black and white sometimes), but they were planning on using the fact that he'd already accepted the ones he knew had been burned and show that their circumstances weren't that much different.

The discussion got a little heated at times, because it turned out John had a bigger issue with the ones who had been literally or effectively burned by the _American_ agencies and military, but eventually John conceded that their reasons for disappearing like they had were at least as valid as his had been, probably more. He _did_ have an issue with Mary, Roan and Charly having been KGB sleepers up until the Seventies, nearly the Nineties in Charly's case, but had to concede that he _knew_ that they'd all been working in America's interests for the last seventeen years or so, because he'd been working closely with them for that long! So he let that go as well.

With that out of the way, John went through all of their qualifications and shook his head, all up they had five or six hundred 'friends', of which about three quarters had been high end special operations operatives (many them Russian, which explained the Cyrillic weapons markings), with many of them functioning as intelligence operatives at times (the same way both he, Bry and Roan had started actually), and the rest had been high end intelligence operatives, with most of _them_ operating in special operations functions at times. They also had thirty or forty high level analysts who'd been burned by the people they worked for because they'd uncovered intel that they weren't supposed to.

Over half of the operatives were Russian, or ex-Soviet at least, a quarter or so American and Israelis made up about half of the rest. A handful of the Americans, like Zoe, Rocky, Rick, Sam, Robin, Sydney, Lexie and Vicky, were working for Auntie Di _on_ the books and other Europeans made up the rest (though Sue hadn't been their only ex-Chinese operative either)... The 'tribe' was at least three times bigger than their 'friends', but they were mostly ex special operations operatives _and_ ex Soviets, and while trusted enough to be part of the group, they weren't trusted to the 'friends' level... and then they had half the friends' numbers in the younger ones from the 'lost children', the ones they'd rescued and helped make new lives for themselves. Many of them like Zondra and Vicky had gone into the military, intelligence or law enforcement fields to have a chance to go after bastards like the ones they'd been rescued from and hopefully spare others from going through what they did. The family had been keeping an eye on them in case they got in trouble, and many of them had been recruited into the Spectre group when the time was right... Along with numerous others who'd gone into the analysis side of things.

It didn't take John long to come to the same conclusion the General had, this was one hell of a formidable crew they had here!

* * *

Carina was shaking her head at everything these people had done when Chuck suddenly had one of those seizures that Sarah and John recognised as him getting a lot of information from the Intersect. Once she was sure he was okay, Sarah asked. "Chuck, did you just flash on Carina?"

He shook his head slowly, looking at Auntie Di. "Not exactly... Auntie Di, what were you doing for that five months you took off in Seventy Eight when you were at Harvard?"

Di froze at that and slowly turned to look at him, obviously remembering that he had most of the information about their world in his head now. "As I expect you already know Chuck, the same thing I was when I got my friends to help me get my group based in California in Ninety, trying to hide the fact that I was pregnant."

"What happened to your baby in Seventy Eight?"

"I gave her up for adoption, because after what they did to Emma I wasn't going to subject a child, _or_ myself, to all the shit that would have been coming from the Beckman family about the fact that I had let myself get knocked up by some random arsehole who was trying to recruit me for the CIA and I didn't have the decency to get rid of my bastard so that I didn't embarrass the family..."

She stopped as she suddenly realised that there must be a reason that he had come out with this when he was looking at Carina and gasped. " _No!_ "

He nodded. "I saw Carina's original birth certificate in her records from the CIA, but it's more complicated than that."

"Even _more_ complicated than that fact that my niece's best friend is actually the daughter I gave up for adoption when she was born and kept a secret from everyone because I was a teenager from a judgemental and totally unsupportive family with no one to turn to...?"

She turned to Emma when she went to say something. "I know that you would have helped if you could Em, but there was no way of talking to you without the CIA finding out because they already had you locked down, and that would have exposed your connection to the Beckmans and put you in more danger. They would have just used that to control me, put more pressure on you and blackmail the Beckman family to keep it quiet. The Beckmans and the CIA had already done too much to you Sis, I wasn't going to give them anything to hurt you more with..."

She looked back at Chuck as Emma started to cry and he nodded again, trying to avoid looking at Auntie Em because that would have made him break down too.

"What can you tell me about that random arsehole you got knocked up by Auntie Di?"

She looked confused. "Not much, Mama must have had good genes even if she was a coward because while not a patch on my big sister, I was still on top in most areas the CIA was interested in so they tried to recruit me. I told their recruiter that I wasn't interested when he approached me, as the Beckmans already had my career mapped out for me, but for some reason they were determined to get me, so they sent an agent to seduce me into agreeing. His name was John Butler... he was shallow and self centred and had an ego the size of Texas but he was incredible in bed... he was also extremely pissed off when I told him afterwards that I still wasn't interested in accepting any offers from the CIA..."

Di glanced at Carina and then hung her head in shame.

"The problem came when I realised that I was pregnant a couple of months later, because as much of an arsehole as Butler was, I found that I couldn't bring myself to terminate the pregnancy, there was a life growing inside of me and it was far too precious to flush down the toilet like that. I didn't say a word to anyone, but I quietly made arrangements to disappear for the period when I couldn't hide the fact that I was pregnant. As I said, I couldn't subject another child to what the Beckmans put Emma through, so I made arrangements for the baby to be adopted and I was assured that she would be taken in and raised by a good family as if she was their own. I gave her up at birth, but not until after I had named her. I named her Katherine Hansen... Katya... and I had used Mama's birth name as the mother and John Butler as the father. I knew my daughter would be a smart cookie so that would give her a way to find us if she wanted to when she grew up, but she would hopefully be safe from the Beckmans..."

She raised her head to look her godson in the eye. "What could possibly make _that_ any more complicated Chuck?"

Chuck glanced at Emma, Sarah and Carina and then met her eye. "The fact that John Butler was the main cover name Joe Blake was using in the late Seventies, and Carina has his eyes, just like Sarah!"

Everyone was staring at him in shock and horror at that, and Di glanced at Sarah, Carina and Emma in turn as she gasped " _No! It can't be!_ ", but now that Chuck had pointed it out, she could see it, Sarah and Carina _did_ have the same eyes and while she'd never actually met the man her sister was with she had learned by the time he was three not to question her godson's memory, so she had no doubt he was right about Butler, Blake or whatever his name was too. She could also see from Carina's expression that the wonderful upbringing she'd been promised her daughter would get hadn't happened, and that was almost certainly how she'd ended up in the CIA's clutches at nineteen according to her records, though from her real birth date it had actually been seventeen.

* * *

After all the crying and shouting had died down, Carina told her story. What Di was told _had_ been true, up until her adopted father walked out on them with some girl half his age when she was five. Her adopted mother had started drinking after that and had one boyfriend after the other moving in with them. As Katya grew she was getting more and more unwanted attention from those boyfriends, until she had to hit the current boyfriend in the head with an iron to get him off of her when he tried to rape her when she was twelve. Her drunk 'mother' had started screaming at her for that and called her a whore, accusing her of trying to steal him from her.

Katya threw whatever clothes and money she could find into a bag and left. She spent the next five years living on the street, making a living by picking pockets, burglary, safe cracking and conning dirty old men who wanted to get it on with a gorgeous young girl out of everything they had. She'd lived rough for much of that time, but she did have periods where she was living the good life on what she got from cleaning out the old perverts. Of course she got beaten up more than a few times, and raped a number of times when she couldn't get away too, but there were only a few times that she'd been hurt bad enough to end up in hospital, up until she used a party at a trust fund jock's family's house as a way to get in to clean out what valuables she could find when she was seventeen.

As a leggy beauty in a tiny dress, she'd never had any trouble getting into those parties, and after having a feed, a few drinks and making out with some cute guys she'd slipped away to start collecting the best of the valuables in the house, but the trust fund jock and his buddies caught her in a part of the house no-one was supposed to be in. There were at least a dozen of them and they had taken turns with her for a few hours, but after they'd all spent themselves they started amusing themselves by defilng and hurting her as much as possible. One of them had made the mistake of leaving a cork screw on the coffee table next to where they'd been having her on the floor when he opened another bottle of wine and she'd managed to get her hands on it. Even though she could hardly see or stand by then, they were all dead inside ten minutes, and she quickly grabbed whatever cash she could find, took clothes from the sister's room to replace what they'd torn off of her and got the hell out of there.

She was beginning to think that she'd gotten away with it, as while the Sallinger Slaughter House as they were calling it was all over the news, the cops still had no leads about who could have done it. Unfortunately, some of those jocks' families had been well connected and were calling in favours to make sure that that bitch who killed their boys got her just deserts, so about a month later a van pulled up beside her as she was walking down the street and the next thing she knew she was handcuffed to a desk in a room with a big evil looking black man playing the security video of her killing all those jocks with a cork screw. The bastard had made a point of fast forwarding through and deleting the hours of video of them raping and defiling her to make it quite clear that what _they_ did was inconsequential, he had video proof that she was the slaughter house killer and that was more than enough to get her the death penalty in that state. Then he laid it out for her that she was going to do anything and everything he said, and excel at it, or she would be getting a one way ticket to the death chamber. She said that he'd laughed when he told her that it would be Carina, rather than Katherine, that Katya stood for now, and Miller instead of Hansen... She glossed over the training that she'd gotten at the Farm and other places, just saying that Graham had been pissed off that she hadn't become the unstoppable killing machine he wanted her to be, so she'd been loaned to one of his friends at the DEA to use as a honey trap to get them into the cartels' and dealers' organisations, but she apparently still belonged to the CIA so he could take her back any time he wanted.

Di broke down over what she'd sentenced her daughter to and all the girls rushed to comfort the both of them after that story, but Sarah saw Chuck leave without a word. She looked at Casey, worried, but he waved it off, making a gun with his hand and pantomiming shooting. Sarah got the message and nodded, Chuck was going to work off some of his rage at Graham by blasting targets away for a while.

They were both wrong about that though, because Chuck's first priority was actually to find all the video evidence that Graham had on Carina and scrub every instance of it from the CIA's systems, along with anything else he had on her, and anything that could be used against her in the DEA and other systems too. While he was at it he did the same for Sarah and Zondra, though there was little that could be used against Zondra in any of the systems. _Then_ he went to blast targets, but he was still doing that when they all came out, and Anna came hurrying up to grab Sarah and Carina and drag them into a meeting room a bit later. As soon as she sealed the door she turned on them. "What the hell was in your records? Chuck didn't clean up after himself when he got out of the systems he was scrubbing details of you from and he's _never_ been angry or unsettled enough to be that sloppy before!"

Sarah and Carina looked at each other and then explained about the 'special' sex training they'd both been forced to go through by Graham, but she shook her head. "No, that's not enough for this... Sorry, I know that it was terrible and I promise that I will do everything I can to help you and Chuck get Graham back for that, but as bad as that was, there had to have been something else to set him off like this?"

That made them look at each other again then Sarah explained how she'd been set up to be gang raped for the first couple of missions and how Graham had kept trying to trick her into missions where that would be the only option, and that she'd been his private executioner for most of the last nine years, and Carina told them both about what she'd been made to do for most of the last twelve years.

Anna was looking sick, but nodded when they finished. "Yeah, _that_ would be enough to set him off..." She looked at Sarah. " Look... _You_ are the only thing that can stop him now Sammie, you need to get in there right now and talk him down before he goes off in a rampage to deal with the ones who hurt you, because as good as Chuck is... even _he_ isn't likely to survive blasting his way through the CIA alone to kill Graham... oh he'll kill him alright, but I don't see him getting out alive and I'm _not_ ready to lose him!"

Sarah just nodded, understanding what Anna was and wasn't saying, and she headed straight for the urban combat range. Anna cut all of the feeds out of the range to give them privacy and then went back into the meeting room, where Carina was explaining to the others what Chuck would have seen in her and Sarah's records.

This time it was John who got to comfort her first and he assured her that none of this changed how he felt about her at all, not even the fact that she was his boss's daughter and the sister of one of the very few woman who could scare the shit out of him. She looked at him, confused, at that and he nodded in Mary and Ellie's direction to indicate who the other ones were...

* * *

Once Sarah had talked Chuck down, the shock of Carina being Di's daughter and Sarah's sister had died down and their new team members had been properly filled in on and integrated into the group, Diane disgustedly conceded that she _had_ to get back to DC, but she wasn't in the mood to put up with those lumps upstairs any more. She'd already decided to replace them with a protective detail of their own people now that the Spectre group was officially operating outside the normal channels so….

She suddenly turned to Chuck. "Can someone fly back to DC with me in one of the Sonics or Shadows Chuck?"

He looked at her quizzically. "I suppose so, but why Auntie Di?"

"Because I'm getting shot of those idiots up there as soon as I get back to DC, and the fighters will get me back to start the paperwork sooner!"

He shook his head. "I'd come with you Auntie Di, but I don't think we can get away with the Human Intersect disappearing for most of a day just yet."

"I know that Honey but most of the crew here are qualified to fly them, so who's up for a trip to DC?"

Anna shared a look with Chuck and they nodded together. "I'll come with you General, people don't pay as much attention to me and I'm officially qualified on the F Twenty Two, so we can openly take one of the Shadows and make it a quicker trip."

Di looked at Chuck hopefully and he shook his head at her. "Alright Auntie Di, _I'll_ tell the guys at Red Mountain to get a Shadow ready, lodge a flight plan and get your boys tickets on a commercial flight to Ronald Reagan for you while you run upstairs to borrow one of Auntie Em's flight suits, seeing as you seem to have already forgotten all about your protective detail."

She just grabbed his shirt to drag him down far enough to kiss him on the cheek and ran off to do as he said.

When her protective detail's collective jaws dropped at seeing her in an Air Force flight suit (being the same size as her sister was handy) she realised that her godson had left this for her to explain, so she just told them that she'd been called back to DC urgently, so a helicopter to Edwards and supersonic ride to DC had been arranged for her and there would be another protective detail and car waiting for her at Andrews. Therefore Major Casey would be making the arrangements for them to return to DC via a commercial flight. They weren't at all happy about that, but held their tongues because they'd gotten a reminder that the General's bite was worse than her bark and all these people seemed even more on edge than they had been before. And what's more, they'd heard stories about Major Casey, and given that they had no idea where they were past the fact that it was somewhere in Los Angeles and fairly close to the airport they flew into (their GPS devices and trackers hadn't worked in the car or the building and the windows in the car were some sort of smart glass which had turned opaque when they started moving), they had a sneaking suspicion that it would be all too easy for them to disappear without a trace.

They were driven to Bob Hope in the same Town Car, so they still had no idea where they were until Major Casey opened the door and barked at them to get out. All their tickets were arranged and they were rushed through to the terminal because they barely had time to board before the airliner left the terminal. The early departure didn't help them though, because it would be at least ten hours before they landed at Ronald Reagan after the layovers in both Salt Lake City and Detroit.

As planned, by the time they got back to DC, they had all been reassigned and General Beckman had a new team of their own people looking after her.


	11. Toulouse-LaTrog

**Oops, I did it again ;^) I decided that I wanted Chuck to have an interesting toy (because supersonic transports and the rest are so blah ;^), so the wreck of the original XV-15 prototype was actually left at Red Mountain and signed over to them. Uncle Hank and Yuri played with it for eight or nine years until they got it the way they wanted it, and it's basically Chuck's personal transport now, they keep it on the roof of El Castillo most of the time.  
**

 **Obviously, _this_ Art For Art's Sake is different from the previous version, but I promise to _try_ not to change it again.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale.**

* * *

The protective detail hadn't been allowed up to the roof of the building to ensure that the General got onto the Air Force helicopter safely, because they weren't cleared to see what was up there. Ellie was already running through the pre-flight check lists when they got up there, so Sarah, Carina and Zondra didn't have time to gawk at the towering glass walls or the variation of a V Twenty Two Osprey that was sitting there with what appeared to be contra rotating props turning before they were pushed on board. Sarah went to take a seat in the cabin with the others, but Chuck pushed her into the cockpit with Ellie. As soon as he'd sealed the door and taken a seat, he called out that they were good to go and Ricky took off, gaining height and transitioning into forward motion so smoothly that they hardly felt a thing. The only real indication was how fast the scenery was flashing past as they flew over the Angeles National Forest.

Things got a little bumpier out over the desert when Ellie handed the controls over to Sarah and coached her through how to fly Ricky, but Sarah picked these things up almost as quickly as she and Chuck did, so the ride smoothed out quickly. Chuck came forward and took over after they'd crossed into Nevada, because he had more experience with the air conditions around Red Mountain than anyone else. They touched down on the runway with nary a bump and he ran them straight up to where the sleek little black jet was sitting outside the hangar doors.

Anna and Auntie Di called their goodbyes and jumped out to run to the Shadow as soon as the door was opened. Anna finalised the pre-flight checks while they were being strapped in and she had the Shadow moving the moment Hank and the others who'd started the engines and did most of the pre-flight checks were clear, so they actually in the air before the airliner took off from Bob Hope because, they didn't have to wait for over half an hour in queues for a take off slot.

Once they'd left, Chuck organised a car to take Auntie Di down to Crystal City when they landed at Tipton Field. When they did, Di quickly changed back into her uniform and gave Anna Emma's flight suit to return to LA, then they waited for the Shadow to be refuelled and take off again before they took off for the drive down.

While they were up at Red Mountain, they'd taken the opportunity to show Sarah, Zondra and Carina around, and if they were gobsmacked by the Dungeon, seeing everything at Red Mountain left them totally stunned. Sarah wasn't at all impressed when Chuck reminded her that she'd have to wait until her flight suits were made up to try out the Sonics and Shadows, but she was slightly mollified by the fact that he'd had Spike prepped and lodged a flight plan so that they could take it up, which meant that she got to tick her dream of piloting a plane past Mach 3 off the list, even though it wasn't what she expected and she still wanted to do it properly in one of the Shadows as soon as she could.

Doing a virtual tour of the facility via the cameras and the screens in the Command and Control Centre was interesting, and Chuck had a fun time explaining why he hadn't mentioned that they had their own solar _power station_ on the facility, or that they had much bigger outdoor ranges there which picked up where the urban combat range in the Dungeon left off, but the girls were quite impressed with the facility. Sarah wasn't too surprised to find that Chuck... no, _they_ , had another apartment inside Red Mountain, because she'd already worked out that he spent a fair bit of time working on things up here from the fact that he was the expert on the air patterns around Red Mountain.

She also saw what Chuck was talking about in regard to supposedly rebuilding the old planes and helicopters, because most of them had been well and truly at the end of their working lives (the special ones like the AN-22 and C-133 had been kept in the underground hangar and they pictures of the others). Good enough aircraft mechanics could and did keep them flying safely, but she felt much safer in the new and improved versions that they'd transferred their identification to... The new versions had significantly better range and performance due to being tons lighter because of their titanium, carbon fibre and kevlar construction and new engines and systems, and most of them had at least a third more capacity and payload too.

All in all, the trip up to Red Mountain was quite a pleasant and informative few hours for them, and it helped take their minds off what they'd learned about Di, Carina and Sarah... a little at least.

* * *

With the effort it had taken to override the ones in Graham's pocket who kept trying to argue that something as important as the Human Intersect needed to be controlled by their intelligence masters at the CIA and Graham winding up the old school types with his heavily edited stories about how Beckman had allowed her Pet Pit Bull to arbitrarily cancel the approved testing of her supposed Human Intersect and then kill one of the people assigned to provide security for the tests, they had quite a few people in DC demanding to see proof that this 'Human Intersect' could deliver. That was why, soon after Carina and Zondra joined the team, Sarah and John were in John's apartment, looking at a screen which was split to show Di and Langston Graham. Graham made no attempt to cover up the fact that he was angry about everything that had happened, especially having Sarah taken out of his control and the debacle at the Intersect Facility, and was demanding that they come up with results on this.

They knew that if they weren't successful, he'd be running all over DC, fanning the flames and whipping the mob into a frenzy about how much money Beckman was wasting and how she was flaunting the authority of the established order, so that he could drag her down. From that, it appeared that their fears about him losing all objectivity were justified, because he seemed to have forgotten that if he tore Auntie Di down, the CIA would lose the services of the Spectre group, who they depended on for much of their intel, but the fact remained that they had no choice, they had to play his game for now.

All they had to go on for this assignment he'd brought to them was a report of a trail of suspicious deaths stretching across Europe and the middle east that was supposedly heading for Los Angeles, though Graham claimed that he had no idea where _that_ particular piece of intel had come from. He also claimed not to know where the intel that many foreign intelligence agencies were apparently very interested in whatever this was had come from. It wasn't hard to see why Graham would be dumping something like this on them to resolve, because it would take a miracle for them to come out of it looking good. The video-conference was wound up with the General saying that she was sending through everything she had been given.

They swore when they saw just how little Graham had provided them to work with, but printed out the images and called for Chuck to come up and look at them. Chuck was drawing a blank and getting frustrated, when his gaze fell on the newspaper sitting on the coffee table. At that moment he was very grateful to Casey for being a dinosaur and holding onto the old ways, because the newspaper's front page article about an art auction that night triggered a flash of information that tied what Graham had given them together, and brought up other information that they needed.

"Ah. Guys? Does the name La Ciudad mean anything to you?"

Both Sarah and Casey had been involved in assignments that had had some connection to the elusive arms dealer known as La Ciudad, so he certainly had their attention with _that_. They sat down and recorded what he'd come up with, then Chuck moved out of range of the camera while they they initiated another video-conference with Diane and Graham (or rather, they contacted her and she linked Graham in) to discuss what Chuck had come up with.

Graham insisted that Chuck go to the auction to identify La Ciudad, and while she agreed in principle with Sarah that the danger to Chuck wasn't justified, Diane knew far better than her just how capable he was of looking after himself and others and the fact remained that no-one else had any chance of identifying La Ciudad, so she made a show of reluctantly agreeing to the need for him to be there. Once they'd laid out the plans for the operation and disconnected the links, Chuck came forward to discuss what they were going to do. The time frame was too tight to get many people into the auction, all they could manage was Chuck and Sarah as guests and Casey as a bartender, though they'd have Carina, Zondra and half of the Cinders Security team on-site to provide backup and the other half in a van outside. Chuck decided to use his Navy identity, Charles Carmichael, as it wasn't known much outside of the U.S. military, while Sarah went with one of her core cover IDs, Rebecca Franco.

Ellie and Anna took Sarah to find a dress, because they knew what Chuck had in his wardrobe _and_ they knew him best, so they could help her pick out something he'd like, and would go with what he had. They all laughed at the saleswoman who tried to convince Sarah that the flaming red dress she was trying to flog would go with everything and suit every occasion, and then they left to find a store where the staff could understand what 'understated' and 'elegant' meant. After that they spent a couple of hours looking through better stores until they found the right dress, and the right shoes, jewellery and clutch to go with it.

Even with the open limit cards she'd had to use with the CIA, Sarah lost her breath when she saw what that dress cost but Ellie laughed, pointing out that she couldn't wear a cheap dress when Chuck was wearing top of the line Armani, but while an expensive tailored suit that has been worn enough to show familiarity said that a man has money, a lady _always_ had to have a new dress for a major event. This showed more familiarity with the rules for these types of functions than she would have expected from Ellie, so Sarah just looked at her and she laughed again. "Who do you think goes to these things whenever they were part of our missions Sarah? Uncle Roan gave up on John when Chuck was twelve because he'd had to fail him from Seduction School for the _second_ time as he couldn't master dressing and behaving the way he needed to to pull off missions of this nature. As you know, Uncle Roan regards Chuck as his star pupil, so it's been Chuck who's done any missions that involved smoozing the targets for the last thirteen years at least, with Anna, Bai, Robin, Gypsy, Zoe, Lexie, Vicky, Katy or I as his partner, but at least we've all built up nice wardrobes out of it." She grinned as she added. "If we couldn't find the right dress for you we would have had to get one of mine altered, because I'm the closest to you in size and colouring, so I'm glad we did."

Sarah just shook her head at that and they headed back to El Castillo.

The movie level hair and makeup station in one of the Dungeon apartments was another surprise (though she kicked herself for being surprised about that after Chuck told her about Bonnie and Cly), and by the time they were ready to leave she felt like a million dollars, which wasn't that surprising, given that the outfit and jewellery she was wearing had cost at _least_ ten to fifteen times more than anything the CIA had ever set her up with.

* * *

The rest of them were in place by the time that they pulled up at the event in the stretch town car, but things went awry before they even got into the event, as some klutz bumped into Chuck on the steps leading up to it and smeared a canapé on his shirt. Chuck went to try and do something about it in the mens' room, but while he was in there, seeing the man washing his hands beside him in the mirror triggered a flash of a number of images related to those he'd seen for La Ciudad. The man noticed the look he gave him as a result of that flash and made a snarky comment, so Chuck gave some platitudes and left hurriedly to get to Sarah to tell her that the next man coming out of the mens' room had something to do with what they were there for.

She swore when she realised that she was going to have to try and get some information out of him, and the others listening in grinned at her words, and worried tone, as she said "I'm going to have to work him a little to get any information out of him, are you OK with that baby?" They also smiled and nodded at Chuck's response "Yes, of course, just be safe!" with the sound of a kiss.

Unfortunately, the man had been looking for Chuck as he came out and he saw him with the stunning blonde, so when she went to work him, she ended up with a pistol pressed into her side as she was hustled from the room. John stopped Chuck from going after them, reminding him that he couldn't be seen doing anything because Graham probably had spotters at the event, and that he needed to stay here and try to spot La Ciudad anyway. As he left, Chuck grabbed his arm and bit out "Get her back safe!" John nodded and took off, a little disturbed by the promised mayhem that was clear in Chuck's tone and face if anything happened to her.

Chuck downed the drink John had made him and started to circulate, as he'd drive himself mad with worry if he stood at the bar thinking about what may be happening to Sarah. He soon found himself in front of the picture which had been prominent in the flashes he'd had that morning, but it was in a different frame, which in turn prompted further flashes which showed how many small containers of plutonium had been hidden inside the other frame (and that it had been invented by the British SIS for the specific purpose of moving things like that around the world undetected), and dispatches which showed where that plutonium had gone to.

At that point he was interrupted by hearing "Beautiful painting, no?" He turned to smile at the Latin beauty, Malena, who'd spoken, making small talk until the music of the tango started. Malena looked so wistful as she said that she _loved_ to tango that Chuck decided that he could look around the room as he danced, and it might get his mind off what he was hearing over the damned earwig, so he led her onto the dance floor. Malena was quite a good dancer, but he was more than a little uncomfortable with the way she kept rubbing up against him and what she was whispering throatily to him, making it quite clear what she had in mind after the dance. When he ended the dance with a dip though, she threw her head back with an excited laugh and her hair fell away from her neck to expose a scar that triggered enough information flashes to confirm that whoever that Brit from the bathroom was, he w _asn't_ La Ciadad, because he currently had _her_ in his arms.

* * *

Meanwhile, Sarah was being held captive up on the roof, and she was being subjected to something that was more a sexual assault than a search, being felt up by one of the goons while the other one held her inappropriately and the one in charge laughed, egging them on. The only reason they hadn't died yet was that Skip had passed on her signal to their waiting support team to hold off until she'd gotten some information out of these slimey limeys. The man who Chuck had seen was demanding to know who she was again when John burst through the door, identified himself as a Federal agent and told them to surrender.

That was where it got strange, because the one in charge arrogantly identified himself as British Intelligence and was adamant that they had full authority to be here and that, as per agreements between the proper authorities, this was _their_ case so he must leave _now_ (ignoring the fact that his men were basically in the process of sexually assaulting a woman right there in front of them). John repeated his demand that they drop their weapons (adding 'and let that woman go!'), but the man just repeated that this was _their_ case and told him to get out. When John repeated his demand the third time and the Brits raised their guns at him, their intentions obvious, Sarah made her move, breaking free of the goon who still had one arm wrapped around her and was squeezing her breast painfully (at least the hand that had been groping at her nether regions when the other one wasn't up there was otherwise occupied with his pistol now), and she did a fair bit of damage to him in the fifteen to twenty seconds before she killed him, starting with his pistol arm of course. The other two ignored John then as they swung their guns towards her, and the support team opened up with their suppressed AS VAL assault rifles, shooting away their guns (and most of the hands holding them) first, then shredding them, it was all over within twenty seconds.

John hurried over to the Brit in charge, demanding to know who they were working with in an attempt to get _something_ from him before he died, but the man was still adamant that they were authorised to be there and this was their operation because of the agreement between their boss and the Director of the CIA, he died saying that but they had it all recorded, everything from the moment Sarah was taken up to the roof by the three Brits. One support team had been waiting in a room upstairs, so as soon as Jeff and Skip identified that Sarah was being taken to the roof, they high tailed it up there to get into position. Skip told Sarah that the team was waiting upstairs and passed on her order for them to wait, as she was hoping to get some information from the Brits, but as soon as they got to the roof, the one in charge just launched into demanding to know who she was and what she was doing there (without identifying himself, he only did _that_ after Casey identified himself as a Federal agent). When Sarah kept up the act of being just a frightened woman who didn't know what was going on, he'd chuckled and said. "I think we better find out what she has on her, don't you lads?", and that was when the 'search' started.

Just as the man expired, Jeff said that Chuck was being taken out of the auction room and from the dialogue they were hearing, he was in trouble. Sarah went to find the XR40 (an improved Boberg XR9-S that had also been modified to take and fire .40 S&Ws) pistol from her thigh holster on the Brit who searched her's body, but Ellie stopped her, handing her a Glock 20 with a spare mag and saying… "This will be more use if you have to fight, just make sure I get _both_ of you back in one piece Sarah!"

Sarah hugged her and ran down the stairs, with John on her heels.

* * *

Things hadn't been going too well there either, because while Chuck was trying to keep Malena occupied with small talk until the others got back, one of Larkin's frat buddies from Stanford had stumbled up, drunk off his arse and all but shouting at him "What the hell are you doing here Bartowski? Didn't you get the message when Roberts dumped your arse and upgraded to Bryce the moment they kicked you out of Stanford for cheating? You don't belong in our world you loser!" Chuck shut him up with a nerve pinch but the damage had already been done, he'd caught the signal she gave so it was no surprise when he felt a pistol being pressed into his back.

While he was sure that he could get out of this with little risk of injury, there was zero possibility of doing that in public without exposing himself as more than he was supposed to be, so when she suggested that they take this to her room he just went along with it. On the way up to Malena's room though, he realised that he couldn't afford to be seen in action by Malena or her men _either_ , because his abilities would be exposed as soon as they went into custody, Shit!

Malena was having fun taunting Chuck while he kept up the frightened civilian act, saying that he'd been trying to impress his date, but she'd dumped him for some rich guy as soon as she caught him out (he was banking on the fact that with their dress sense, they couldn't tell a high end Armani from a knockoff). When she decided that he didn't have anything else to tell her, she started slowly screwing a suppressor onto her pistol and he was thinking that he'd _have_ to let them see what he could do, but then a thumping outside the door caught her and her guards' attention.

They called out to the guard outside the door, and when he didn't answer, they started bringing their pistols up so Chuck hissed "Get down!" into his mic, calling "Guards at two and three o'clock from the door!" as they started firing and he kicked the chair he was tied to over. He'd broken the chair apart and freed himself within fifteen to twenty seconds, and he surged up to knock out La Ciudad with a blow to the base of the skull. By that time they'd taken out the guards in the room using his targeting information so he called them to cease fire, going to let them in when they did so.

They came up with a story about a shoot out between some drug dealers and the DEA and FBI strike team who came in to take them down (using the Cinders Security team to pose as them, of course). Diane organised cleaners to come in and make everything look the way it had, and arranged for trusted FBI agents from the LA office to meet them at Los Alamitos to escort the prisoner and the Brits' bodies that the 'FBI' strike team had delivered to the airport to DC. One of the 'FBI' strike team also handed over an envelope with British SIS agents' credentials and guns when La Ciudad was remanded to their custody. They'd worked with the FBI people in LA enough that no questions were asked about about the 'out of town' strike team or the 'under cover' C11 in Emerald Air livery, which would be bringing them back to LA once they'd handed over La Ciudad and everything else to the proper authorities in DC.

* * *

By the time the prisoner and contraband were handed off to the FBI Agents, Di had filled the DNI in on the events of the night and sent him the videos of everything that had happened on the roof, and Sarah and John were in a video-conference with Di and Graham (with the DNI hiding the fact that he was linked in as well). Graham was looking a little smug as he made a dig at Di about her team almost losing their Human Intersect, so Sarah went to town, saying that they would never have been separated from him if it wasn't for those foreign operatives who had taken her away at gunpoint and who had for some reason been insisting that they had authority to operate on U.S. soil, and in fact this was _their_ operation so the U.S. Federal agents should stand down.

Graham went quiet at that, so Di asked whether he knew anything about these claims? He hesitated as he tried to think of a way out of admitting that he was fully aware of the Brits' presence, but he couldn't, so he decided to talk around it.

"The head of the British SIS and I have had a gentleman's agreement for some time to allow each other's agents to operate on their soil."

"Has the Director of National Intelligence signed off on this 'gentlemen's agreement' Director? Is the DNI even aware of it?"

"No, the agreement was made before that role was created."

"And you didn't feel it necessary to advise the DNI of agreements that you'd unilaterally made with a foreign power about operations on U.S. soil _after_ the role _was_ created?"

"It must have slipped my mind."

"What about this claim of their's that this was a British SIS operation so U.S. Federal agents had no authority to intercede _on U.S. soil_ then? Was that something _else_ that slipped your mind Director Graham?"

"We never specifically discussed the current operation coming onto U.S. soil, but the nature of our agreement was that agents will be permitted to follow through on on-going operations, wherever it may take them."

"You seem to have omitted an awful lot from the briefing that you gave _us_ Director... In fact you specifically informed us that you had no knowledge of anything else which may have any impact on the current operation, this information would have been extremely useful to my team in handling the situation they were faced with."

Graham tried to stare her down. "That information had no bearing to the operation you were engaged for!"

Di glared at him. "The facts of the matter say otherwise Director!" She paused to try and calm herself. "We shall see what the DNI's opinion is on this Director, but the evidence I'm seeing here is saying that you deliberately attempted to sabotage our operation, and through withholding critical information from us, you put at least three members of my team's lives and the operation itself at risk, don't think that this is going to end here Director! It will be interesting to see what the Brits have to say about it when we return the bodies of their men to them…"

"What? Your people have murdered the representatives of our allies who were here on an authorised operation? When the British government hears about this they'll be in one of their black sites for the rest of their lives, unless a more direct approach is taken! You too Beckman!"

At that point the DNI activated his screen. "I'd be careful about making threats if I were you Director, because at the moment _you're_ the only one here who's likely to be going up on charges!"

Graham had murder in his eye as he glared at Di, but the DNI ignored that as he went on. "To summarise the incident, Agent Walker was kidnapped from the event where the Human Intersect Team was engaged in a mission and taken at gunpoint to the roof of the building by these individuals. Once up on the roof they proceeded to essentially sexually assault her, while repeatedly demanding to know who she was and what she was doing there without ever identifying themselves to her. For this reason Agent Walker endured this treatment at their hands to avoid breaking her cover as a civilian until after Major Casey had arrived, identifying himself as a Federal agent and ordering them to surrender. Instead of surrendering however, these individuals _then_ identified themselves as British Intelligence, insisting that they were authorised to be there and that this was _their_ operation, ordering _him_ to leave. Meanwhile they continued to handle Agent Walker quite inappropriately. Agent Casey repeated that he was a Federal Officer and again ordered them to surrender, to no avail, and when he attempted a third time they raised their guns at him with deliberate intent, so at that point Agent Walker dealt with the one holding her so that she could come to her partner's aid. When she did that the remaining two British agents turned their guns on Agent Walker so their support team put them down to protect her."

Graham shook his head. "This is obviously nothing more than a fiction that General Beckman's team have concocted in an attempt to cover up their murder of a friendly power's agents!"

The DNI looked grim. "It is most definitely _not_ fiction Director Graham, because I have watched video recordings of the entire event from multiple viewpoints! Which brings us to _this_!" He hit a key to play the video segment of the SIS agent's dying words about the agreement between the head of the SIS and the Director of the CIA, then went on.

"This, and your previous comments to General Beckman, represent a serious breach of protocol and your duties of disclosure, as well as proof that you have grossly exceeded your authority Director. You _never_ had the authority to authorise any foreign power to operate on U.S. soil! That always has, and always will be, a decision that the _President_ must make. I am quite sure that you were aware of that and that was why you attempted to conceal your actions when the office of the Director of National Intelligence was created _above_ you. I will be seeking confirmation from my predecessor on this, but did you ever inform him that you had taken it upon yourself to grant foreign powers leave to operate on U.S. soil Director? I will not use the word 'authorise', because as I have already said, we _both_ know that you never had the authority to do that!"

"I was operating under the understanding that it was part of my remit as the Director of Central Intelligence... Sir."

"I will be requiring you to show me _precisely_ which part of the description of the role of the DCI that you claim to have gotten _that_ understanding from Director, because I am quite sure that I never saw anything that even hinted at that in your job description…. and I can assure you that I read it _very_ carefully... While we're on the subject, I know for a fact that you're quite aware of your responsibility to report any and all matters of this nature to me... _your_ **_Boss_**... Director, because you were _quite_ vocal in your complaints about it when I refused to accept the role of DNI until the ambiguous wording of the legislature enacting the role had been cleared up to ensure that you would be **_forced_** to recognise the DNI's authority over the CIA! Your complaints when I moved the Office of the DNI to the Marshals' building in Crystal City rather than into your backyard to prevent you trying to influence my staff have **_also_** been noted! I'd suggest that you think long and hard about the path you're on Director Graham, because I can assure you that it will **_not_** end well for you if you keep going this way!"

" _Now_ , on to another matter…. Did you _also_ agree to allow the British to smuggle weapons grade plutonium into the United States, in clear breach of all nuclear agreements? Before you answer, please remember that we now have access to all manner of information that we didn't prior to the Intersect Director."

Graham was furious about being talked to like that in front of Beckman, Walker and Casey but he knew that he was in deep shit, because this bastard had all but said that they had proof of this, as well as everything else he'd just brought up. "I never specifically agreed to that Sir, but the SIS _may_ have interpreted it that way when we agreed that they could follow the operation through to the end, and I believe that they were forced to use the expected grade of plutonium in order for it to pass tests being done by any prospective buyers."

"So that is a yes. I am quite disturbed and disappointed by this whole business Director, and I am sure that the President will be equally disappointed when I advise him of this! Do _you_ know where that plutonium is at the moment?"

Once again, he was implying that they _did_ , so it was too dangerous to try and lie about it. "I believe that it is currently in the British Consulate in Los Angeles sir, they were reportedly planning to return it to Britain by diplomatic pouch at the earliest opportunity."

The DNI shook his head at him angrily. "I want details of each and every agreement you've made with foreign powers Director, whether they be general policy or related to specific operations, and I want them _now_!"

"I can't discuss things of this nature in front of these people sir..."

"It will be public knowledge soon enough Director, because I can assure you that the President will be _formally_ cancelling each and every one of those agreements with the relevant heads of state, so talking in front of people who are cleared as high as you and I isn't an issue, now _talk!_ And I better not find out down the track that anything _more_ has 'slipped your mind'!"

Graham spoke for over an hour, detailing every agreement he'd made that was still in effect. It was obvious that he wanted to kill Di, the DNI and everyone else involved in this debacle, but there was no way out of it. When he was done, he gritted out. "Will that be all... _Sir_?"

The DNI had what he wanted, so he was a little more mellow now. "I think so Director, unless you have something General?"

* * *

Di kept her face impassive as she said "Just this sir." and handed Graham the bill for the operation.

"What? This was a trial operation, surely you don't expect me to pay this!"

The DNI cut in again. "I never saw any indication in the documentation for this operation that this was anything other than a genuine mission Director, and it has bagged us La Ciudad…."

He stopped to think for a moment (or more to the point, pretended to). "General, make arrangements to take La Ciudad back into custody the moment she arrives at Andrews and hang onto her until we find someone else to pick up the tab for this operation... I don't see us having any trouble finding someone to pick up the cost of the operation to get a prize like _that_ if Director Graham is unwilling to do so. I'm sure that Bob would jump at the chance…... "

Di schooled her expression as she said. "Yes sir" but Graham cut in.

"Wait a minute! This was the CIA's operation so La Ciudad is _our's_ , but these charges are ridiculous! _Four Hundred Thousand_ in penalties for supposedly endangering her personnel... a Hundred Thousand Dollars to engage your team for an operation that didn't take much more than an hour! Over Twenty Thousand for a dress, Five Thousand for _shoes_ , Twenty _Five_ thousand for jewellery, Six Thousand for an Armani suit, nearly _Sixty_ Thousand for a Towncar! That's over Six Hundred Thousand Dollars!"

"You agreed in writing to all the documented terms, conditions and charges that applied to engaging the Human Intersect Team, _including_ the penalties for knowingly putting members of the Human Intersect Team at risk through deliberate action or inaction, before you engaged us Director. Those penalties were made quite clear, One Hundred Thousand penalty per team member who is physically put at risk, and to be doubled whenever they apply to the Human Intersect because he is an irreplaceable resource... Therefore the penalties to be applied for this operation are One Hundred Thousand for Agent Walker, One Hundred Thousand for Major Casey and Two Hundred Thousand for Mister Bartowski... No... I just remembered that the penalties that the CIA must pay have to be increased Director, because the penalties for your agent attempting to _murder_ Mister Bartowski in Washington have not yet been paid either, so the payments to be made are now _Four_ Hundred thousand Dollars in penalties relating to Mister Bartowski, plus One Hundred for Agent Walker and One Hundred for Major Casey. As for the other charges, you were aware of the fee scale for engaging the team for a physical operation going into this Director, and while I am a little surprised that you're arguing about what amounts to petty change after the penalties the CIA have accrued, as you well know, the time window between your dem... sorry... request... that my agents go in to locate and apprehend La Ciudad, in which you _specifically_ insisted that the Human Intersect _must_ accompany them, and the event that we believed that La Ciudad would be attending was no more than a matter of hours. There was no way to organise and ship what was required to Los Angeles in that time frame and all the available rental limousines in Los Angeles had already been booked out by that stage so they had to spend what time there was running around buying whatever they needed for the operation in a hurry. Agent Walker, as an experienced CIA Agent, pointed out that appearances are all important in a mission of this nature as they would fail if they were rejected because they didn't project the right image, so she took Mister Bartowski shopping for a suitable outfit, then found something that matched for herself. They certainly looked the part of a successful couple when they arrived."

"I find your definition of petty change interesting General, considering that those items add up to over a Hundred Thousand Dollars! It is obvious that your people just bought the most expensive labels they could find!"

"But Agent Walker said that the outfits she was issued by the CIA were always designer labels?"

"Not _real_ labels for god's sake! We have people making up knockoffs for us all the time! Anyway, while it's obvious that I can't do anything about your extortion with these so called _penalties_ , the CIA is _not_ going to pay to provide your people with fancy wardrobes, they can return them and get the money back, and the jewellery and the car too!"

"I'm afraid that that will not be possible Director, because Agent Walker's dress was all but torn off of her when she was being sexually assaulted by those British agents, and Mister Bartowski's suit was also destroyed when he was being tortured by La Ciudad. The necklace Agent Walker was wearing was also damaged and some of the jewels were lost when it was torn off of her. We have been given a quote of approximately Eight Thousand to restore it to anything like its previous state and advised that we will lose at least Two Thousand more selling it second hand, so we'd only be able to recover about Fifteen Thousand at most for the jewellery. We _can_ attempt to sell the car and return what we can get for it, but I'm afraid that that isn't likely to be anything like what they paid for it, because they were in such a hurry to get ready for the mission that they had to pay the asking price, which was inevitably top dollar, and if we have another operation spring on is in a similar time frame we're likely to have to go out and buy another car for that…. I am prepared to absorb half of the cost of the car to retain it for that eventuality, but as you are aware from the terms you agreed to to engage the Human Intersect team, it is a strictly pay as you go operation at the moment because we must recover the costs of any operations from the people who engage us as we have no on-going budget allocations for our operations."

Graham looked about ready to explode at that, as he was well aware of the terms, he just hadn't expected to be had over a barrel like this. He was in enough trouble as it was though, so he gave in that far. "Very well General, I will agree to your retaining the car on those terms, with the understanding that the CIA will _not_ be charged for another car on any of these operations. Take off Thirty Thousand for the car and Fifteen Thousand for the jewellery, and from now on, the CIA will supply _everything_ your agents wear on any operations that you do for us!"

Di was struggling to hide her smile of triumph. "That is understood Director, if you'll just wait a minute I will adjust the figures for the car, jewellery, and penalties for Mister Bartowski…."

She went on as she adjusted the invoice and printed a new one. "You have noted, I hope, the one week payment terms and late payment penalties Director? I apologise for that but I believe that they were written in by the ODNI's accounts people to comply with some standard frameworks that are coming in."

Graham stopped just short of snatching the invoice off of her and storming out, biting out "Sir, General" before he left in much the same way he had in his last meeting with these people.

* * *

Once he was gone and the door was sealed behind him, the DNI shook his head. "I think you better watch your back with the Director from now on General, he lost a great deal today, and even more in the last week, and I believe that he will most likely be laying the blame for all of that at your feet... I'm not sure it was a good idea to slap him in the face with that additional Two Hundred Thousand in penalties for Mister Bartowski, I understand that you were making a point but that man is ready to explode."

Di just nodded. "Yes Sir, but as you said, I felt it necessary to make it quite clear to Director Graham that if he continues to try and play games with the Human Intersect Team's lives and safety, it _will_ cost him, and I will continue to do so until he learns the lesson."

He nodded and then turned his attention to Sarah. "Please allow me to formally apologise for your treatment at the hands of those British agents, Agent Walker… Though actually I believe the people who need to formally apologise are the Brits... Yes, I think I will get the President to add that as a requirement for when they hand over the plutonium that they have at their Consulate. The President has daughters your age, so I don't see him letting something like that slide after he sees the video of what was done to you on that roof..."

When Sarah went to say something he shook his head. "I'm sorry Agent Walker, but the President at least needs to see that video, because it will be a key part of convincing him to take the step of formally revoking all of those illicit agreements that Director Graham has made. I will however do my best to restrict it to only those people who _need_ to see it."

She nodded resignedly. "Yes sir, thank you."

"It's a pity that dress was destroyed, you looked quite lovely in it when you first arrived on the roof. I must say that you have expensive tastes though, _please_ promise me that you'll never go shopping with my wife and daughters, I can't afford that sort of thing on a government salary!"

That brought a smile back to Sarah's face. "Oh it wasn't me who chose the dress sir, it was… the General's fashion consultant."

He turned his attention back to Diane. "Fashion consultant?"

"The daughter of a friend who's living in Los Angeles sir, La Ciudad's involvement suddenly made this a very important operation, and as Agent Walker said the right image is everything with those people, so as Nora is part of that crowd I asked her to help ensure that Mister Bartowski and Agent Walker looked the part. I must admit that I almost fainted myself when I saw the bill, but as you said, they certainly looked like they were meant to be there."

He nodded at that, and wound up the meeting so that he could make arrangements to get in to see the President straight away to deal with the situation Graham had put them in.

* * *

Back in Langley, Graham was furious, because everything had gone to shit... well ever since he suspended Larkin really but _especially_ in the last week. Obviously he'd had no idea about how much his staff had been compromised by Larkin, because it had to have been one of them who gave him the information about the new Intersect facility. Then Larkin sent the Intersect to _Bartowski_ , who could actually use it! It was obvious now who really got that ninety eight percent result in the Subliminal Imaging tests at Stanford, and why Larkin had been such a failure as a potential Intersect host!

It only got worse after that because he'd been blind sided by that pint sized bitch Beckman, _again_! She'd somehow played him, and apparently the DNI _and_ the President, to not only get sole control of the Human Intersect Project, but to get it taken completely outside all the normal chains of command too. Not that it would have taken much to get the DNI to go along with anything that would hurt him... But the bastard was right, he should have kept his mouth shut because he'd given them enough evidence to bury him... but he'd been pissed off when the President's patsy had gotten the job that was meant for him in the first place and then, when they'd offered it to that bastard, he'd insisted that they fix the loophole that he'd been using to refuse to accept DNI's authority... Then after he'd managed to use the argument that the mandate stated that the DNI's office couldn't be in any intelligence agency's building to organise to get it to be moved to the counter intelligence centre he'd had built out past Langley in Liberty Corner where he could fill the office with his people because the Defense people wouldn't go all the way out there, the bastard argued that that was too far away from the White House and everything else and moved them into the damned Marshals' building in the Pentagon's back yard instead! And on top of that he'd used the same argument to get the counter intelligence centre moved to Bolling where the Office of the DNI used to be! (He would have been even more furious if he'd known that it was the Cinders group, via Di and Jack, who had pointed these things out to Mike and helped him get them put through, and they had also been behind him replacing the first DNI because Graham had been running roughshod over the man and making a mockery of the role they'd helped create to get the American intelligence community back on track.)

He was _also_ kicking himself for taking so long to remember how effectively that little bitch had pantsed him back in Ninety Six when he tried to get the DCS to do their dirty work for them at that auction in Mexico and it backfired on him. He must be slipping, he didn't usually forget anyone who'd shown that they could play the game like that.

But on top of that, she'd now managed to take his best agent off of him, and he _needed_ Walker for when Frost came after him! He knew from discussions with his people in the DEA and the FBI that Beckman had co-opted Miller and Rizzo the same way, _and_ that the Director of the FBI had demanded an investigation be made into why Rizzo had generally been relegated to insignificant dead end operations ever since he disbanded the CAT Squad and she was sent back to the FBI. That was unfortunate, but hopefully the fact that it had been on his orders had been buried far enough to remain a secret. The plan had been to make sure he knew where to find her when he was ready to use her, Miller too, but having the DEA keeping Miller malleable by using her to soften up drug lords all the time had worked too.

That was what rankled the most, the fact that that bitch Beckman _almost_ had exactly what he'd been planning for the Omaha project, the Human Intersect teamed up with the rest of the U.S. Intelligence communities' best agents to form the _ultimate_ team. The only thing that bitch was missing was the fact that the Human Intersect was meant to be an agent who was good enough to handle whatever was required of them, while _her's_ was a civilian, and a mewling mommy's boy at that! So she would never achieve what that team was destined to achieve with him.

This current business though, that just added to his problems. It was supposed to have been easy, give them just enough clues to make them look incompetent when the Brits came in and solved it right under their noses. That would have given him and his supporters the ammunition they needed to argue that a civilian was obviously incapable of doing what was required of the Human Intersect and start the ball rolling to get that project disbanded and get Walker back where she was supposed to be. But that idiot Bartowski had fluked it and came up with enough intel to move it forward. He'd still thought that that he could make it work for him though, insist that they send Bartowski in there so that La Ciudad would kill him like everyone else who'd gotten close enough to identify him, which would have given them pretty much the same result. Yeah, they'd be without the Intersect Database until they rebuilt the Intersect computers, but America had survived for hundreds of years without the Intersect, a few more months wouldn't hurt.

But them having that run in with the Brit agents and those stupid Brits opening their big mouths had made it all blow up in his face, especially with those fools getting up in arms about Walker being handled like that... But being forced to come clean about the agreements he had been making with his counterparts around the world, _that_ was going to hurt him! The cherry on top of the big steaming turd was the fact that after all that, Beckman's people had somehow managed to capture La Ciudad, so Beckman came out of this looking good, damned good, while he was going to get reamed. Not to mention the fact that he was going to have to somehow find a way to cover up the fact that this operation had cost the CIA over Three Quarters of a Million, and Six Hundred Thousand of that was in penalty charges!

* * *

A couple of days later, Di filled them in on the outcome with the Brits and others. "The President agreed with the DNI and he has been formally revoking every one of the agreements Graham made, starting with the British SIS. The President received an almost immediate response from the British Prime Minister, saying that the Chief of the SIS has also been called to account for every agreement that he's ever made with any foreign organisations and threatened with penalties up to and including prison if he tries to hide anything or make any further agreements without proper authorisation. The Prime Minister asked what the President was going to do about Director Graham, and he assured him that he would be doing the same with Graham."

"Graham has lost a lot of influence with his foreign allies over this because everyone now knows that he's no longer able to follow through on most of the promises he makes, so he won't be able to get any more favours from them. Needless to say, Graham won't be at all happy about any of this and unfortunately he still has enough support inside our own government to prevent him being dismissed, so we have to expect him to try to get back at us, and Sarah will be his most obvious target, so we need to be careful….."

She stopped to think for a bit and and asked the others if she could have a private word with Chuck and Sarah. Once the others had left, she looked at them and said. "Chuck, Sarah, did you mean what you said in DC?"

"Yes Auntie Di, we both did, but we _didn't_ say that because you'd cleverly manoeuvred us into it like you thought you did, we want to be married because we don't want to be apart again!"

"I'm glad Honey, I truly am, but I still believe that Sarah will be safer once you two are married."

Sarah looked at Chuck nodding resignedly with a smile. "So are we getting married?"

"Yeah... Don't get me wrong, I've been looking forward to the day we marry all my life! It's just... I just don't like the idea that we're having to do it to protect you from Graham and those other bastards."

"We _aren't_ Charlie! Like you said, we're doing this because we've been looking forward to this all our lives and don't want to be apart, ever again."

He had a question in his eye as he looked at her, she smiled and nodded and he took her hands. "Samara Liisa Burdon, Samantha Lisa Blake, Samantha Lisa Larouche, Caitlin O'Connell, Rebecca Franco, Sarah Lisa Walker and any other name you choose to use, would you make me the happiest man alive by agreeing to be my wife and spend the rest of our lives together, please?"

"Yes, Charles Philip Jaworski, Charles Irving Bartowski, Conrad Hunter, Charles Philip Carmichael and whatever other names you choose to use, I'd love to marry you and spend the rest of our lives together!"

Di smiled with a tear in her eye and sent message to Mary, Emma and Ellie to go back to the meeting room. When they returned, Diane explained that they'd discussed marriage half jokingly before, but Chuck and Sarah had now agreed that it was the best way to make Sarah safer, because as they'd covered previously, as a married woman, she would have legal grounds to refuse the sort of things that people like Graham and his ilk were likely to push at her, even if they did somehow manage to shut the project down.

Di paused and Chuck turned to Emma. "Auntie Em, do I have your blessing to marry your daughter?"

Emma nodded with tears in her eyes. "Of course Chuck, I've been waiting for this day since you were children!"

Sarah turned to Mary with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "Auntie Mary, do I have your blessing to marry your son?"

Mary laughed, but had tears in her eyes as well. "What do you think? I've been waiting for the day that you officially become my daughter as well."

At that Sarah turned to Ellie. "Ellie, are you OK with this?"

Ellie just burst into tears. "Are you kidding? I've thought of you as my sister since the day that you were born, so I've been waiting for this for all your life!" At that they were both crying in each other's arms.

Mary turned to her son with a smile. "Haven't you forgotten something Chuck? Someone else you're supposed to ask?"

As Chuck went to answer, Di put up the video of Chuck asking the question and Sarah's response. When it was done Mary laughed and said. "Okay, you didn't forget, but strictly speaking you should have asked Emma first."

Emma shut her up. "Oh stop it Mary, we're going to be the family we were always meant to be, but the girls, Vivien, Bry, Kim and the others _do_ need to be part of this too."

Sarah looked panicked at that. "Oh no! How could I forget about the girls? I _can't_ marry their father without their blessing!" With that, she bolted out the door, with laughter wafting after her.

Chuck left soon after, to see his little sister, then Uncle Bry and Kim, Anna and Lou and then he was knocking on the door of Carina and Zondra's apartment (because they'd decided almost straight away that living there with everyone else was where they wanted to be). He was relieved to see that Carina had put aside the seductress when she opened the door in shorts and a tank top. She just pulled him inside, calling out "Zee!", because she had a good idea of what he was there for.

Unsurprisingly, the twins were the loudest and most excited after Ellie, but Carina and Zondra were remarkably demonstrative for spies when Chuck broached the matter with them. With the matter of Graham hanging over their heads, they decided to fly up to Vegas immediately for a quick wedding, then have a proper wedding with all the pomp and ceremony that everyone else was bound to demand when they could fit it into their cover story.

* * *

What names they could get legally married as was the only question, but that was easily resolved because soon after Sarah left Harvard, Jane, Pete and some of the other CIA techs had made sure that all the records were in place to make Sarah Lisa Walker her legal name, down to the officially certified birth certificate which she had collected from Jane's when they were in DC. Chuck's earlier degrees from Caltech and MIT were all in the name of Charles Carmichael and he'd never liked the stupid name Charles Irving Bartowski anyway, so he had done much the same thing to legally become Charles Philip Carmichael when Uncle Roan asked him what name he wanted his degrees from Stanford to be issued as. The fact that most of their degrees were in those names was just icing on the cake.

Casey called their guys at Los Alamitos to get the J70 readied for a flight to Vegas and organise the flight plans while Diane organised to have the paperwork they'd need for the wedding ready for them when they got there. Chuck also called Red Mountain to have Hank, Yuri, Joe and Ljuda meet them in Vegas, because they would have been upset if they were left out of this, Di was upset too, but agreed that Sarah being legally married ASAP was more important than her being there. Mind you, she made it quite clear that if she wasn't there for the _real_ wedding, there would be hell to pay!

With all the resources at their disposal, Chuck and Sarah were married and back in LA within four hours of deciding to do so, and Chuck slipped the references to their official marriage records into Sarah's CIA files, so the CIA couldn't say that they had no knowledge of it.

* * *

A week or so after they were married, Sarah got her apology from the British Consul-General in Los Angeles, but it was forced and fell far short of what could have been considered a genuine apology, and as she was turning away she heard him mutter to himself. "It's a damned disgrace! Being forced to _apologise_ to the bitch who _murdered_ our people!" so she turned back and stepped close, speaking too quietly for anyone else to hear.

"Listen you ignorant bastard! No-one was _murdered_ , two of your perverts were shot when _they_ tried to shoot my partner after the _third_ time he'd identified himself as a Federal agent! _I_ killed the third one! Not because he was mauling my breasts so hard that they're still bruised though, it was to free myself so I could try to help save my partner! So I'd be happy if all you sick, pathetic little bastards would get the hell out of our country! You just better hope that I never find you away from your guards _Consul_ , but even _that_ wouldn't be murder, it would be a mercy killing because you're obviously too stupid to live!" With that she nodded politely to him and turned to gracefully glide away, the very epitome of elegance, while the Consul-General hurriedly shuffled away from the puddle he'd left on the floor.

They got a message from Auntie Di when they got back to El Castillo to say that they'd had a shotgun mic trained on her throughout the apology and their subsequent discussion, and while the DNI would officially be very disappointed with her if it ever got out, he wanted her to know that he hadn't laughed that hard in years, especially when she made the bastard wet himself. She added that they'd be keeping all the recordings in case the Consul-General was stupid enough to try and lodge a complaint about it.

* * *

With the way that Graham was losing his allies overseas hand over fist, he was desperate to shore up his domestic alliances, so when the opportunity presented itself to mount a joint operation with his old friend the Administrator of the DEA, he jumped at the chance. Of course, neither of them wanted to take the risk of going up against terrorists with anyone who could be associated with them, and they'd lost their best agents to this Human Intersect Project anyway, so the Administrator quickly agreed to Graham's reasoning that they should get the Human Intersect Team do their dirty work for them.

That was why they were engaged for another urgent mission by the CIA and DEA soon after Sarah got her poor excuse for an apology. It looked like Graham might have learned his lesson though, because they appeared to have the relevant information this time... Peyman Alahi, a drug transporter, was currently holding onto a fabulous diamond, the Nadan-I-Noor, for terrorists, as it was going to be used as payment for a major missile purchase, so the purpose of this mission was to get that diamond away from him and stop the missile purchase.

The DEA Administrator wasn't at all impressed when he tried to order Carina to go in and seduce Alahi and whoever else it took to get the diamond but Di abruptly told him that he couldn't give any of her team orders _or_ dictate how they would carry out their operations! As per the terms and conditions laid out, he could _only_ specify the target of the operation. He was even more furious when his attempt to intimidate _her_ with threats of dire consequences if her methods didn't get the diamond had no effect at all. Graham had tried to stop him going down that path, because for all he wanted to shoot this little bitch in the face himself, he knew from personal experience that she wouldn't give in to intimidation.

While Chuck and Anna were getting into the systems to collect the plans and details of the security systems, the rest of them were organising the team for the incursion. Chuck, Sarah and Carina would be the ones going in openly, with Casey on-site as their driver, while the rest of them would be waiting just off-site to come in.

At least getting into Alahi's compound was easy enough, because the pervert kept a perpetual pool party going to surround himself with women wearing as little as possible. While they went in the front door, part of the Cinders Security team were infiltrating the property from the beach so that they could be on hand quickly if things went south and the rest were waiting on the beach, ready to come in if they were needed. Chuck, Sarah and Carina circulated until they were in a position to slip away without being seen, and then they headed straight for where they expected the diamond to be, confirming that the team were in place before they headed inside.

* * *

Chuck had no trouble circumventing the security system to get into the mansion, but the diamond was in a sealed display room, which almost certainly had silent alarms. They didn't have the time or equipment to properly disable all the security systems, so they agreed that they would have to snatch it and run.

He got them into the room, but then they ran into another complication, as the intersect then showed that part of the security on the diamond included pumping enough electricity through the cradle holding the stone to fry anyone who touched it. He was trying solve that problem when they heard a round being chambered behind them. The girls kicked themselves at that, because _they_ were the ones who were supposed to be keeping watch while Chuck got them past the security, but they'd been tied up in trying to brainstorm a way to grab the diamond before they were caught in there.

When they turned to face the people behind them though, they were met by a sickening sight, because Alahi was standing there in all his glory with two guards, and the fugly little toad was covered in little more than his own fur.

Sarah and Carina dropped into their ever reliable ditzy valley girl personas which had the effect of disarming most men while making them think that they were about to get lucky. Alahi trying to be smooth as he devoured them with his eyes, saying "So you like my diamond?" played right into their hands, so Sarah came right back with a ditzy "Oh, yeah, it's _really_ pretty!"

He came forward so he could touch them, confident that his guards would stop the man doing anything when he did so, saying "You're not supposed to be here!" as if he were chiding a child, so she responded "Oh, I'm _really_ sorry, but the door was open... Who are you?"

He all but licked his lips as he leered at her "Pretty girls call me Peyman."

Carina jumped in then "Hi Peyman, this is Sarah, I'm Carina, and this is our brother Chuckie" as she stepped up to Chuck to put her arm around him.

Alahi thought that the guy being their brother meant that he was onto a sure thing, so he turned to dismiss his guards, just as Carina's hand came back, holding the Russian OTs-38 Stechkin silent revolver that Chuck had had tucked into the waistband of his trousers in the small of his back. She took out the two guards with head shots and the valley girl was gone as she finished with. "And this is my little friend!"

Glancing from the pistol to Chuck she grinned, saying. "I like it Chuckie!"

He smiled, turning to Sarah who had Alahi on his knees, twisting the hand he'd grabbed her on the arse with up behind his back. Chuck met her eye and she nodded, because he had to keep up the civilian or at least analyst act, so she asked. "How do we turn off the security system?"

The idiot still thought that he had the situation under control because was expecting his guards to arrive at any minute, so he was actually trying to get a better look down her dress as he leered up at her and said "You'll need the key card to do that….. but you'll have to search me to find it." That got his arm wrenched hard enough to result in a loud ' _snap_ ' as Sarah said "Oopsies" in her valley girl voice before knocking him out to prevent his screams bringing the anyone else. They called for someone to come and collect Alahi, while Chuck went back to trying to work out how to get the diamond without being electrocuted.

Eventually he spied the fire extinguisher and told Carina to grab it, and as soon as the men had secured Alahi and removed him from the room, she fired a blast of CO2 at the diamond, blowing it off the pedestal for Chuck to catch. He got a bit of a shock from the residual electricity, but managed to hold onto it. The problem then was that as well as the alarm going off, the door started coming down and gas was released into the room, apparently they were serious about preventing the diamond from being stolen.

Chuck gave Sarah a shove that took her out of the room before the door got that far down and Carina kicked over a pedestal holding a bust over to stop the door a bit over a foot off the floor, then showed that she must have been a tomboy when she was little as she slid under the door in a perfect little league slide. Chuck followed her, just scraping through because he was bigger, but he made it. Once outside, they hoofed it with their people who'd taken out the guards who'd come running at the alarm.

As she couldn't run in those heels, Chuck scooped up Sarah while John did the same with Carina and they took off down the path to the beach to pile into the waiting vans and Continental convertible. With electric motors in each wheel, adjustable suspension and extendible paddles in the tweels, the lightweight machines had no trouble charging across the sand, and once they were on the road with the paddles retracted and their suspensions lowered, they proved themselves just as capable on-road as off. They transferred Alahi and the diamond to the H30 that was waiting for them a few miles down the road which in turn delivered them to the trusted FBI Agents on the J50 that was waiting at Los Alamitos, while the Continental and the vans headed back to El Castillo.

* * *

As soon as they got back to El Castillo they reported in about the mission, and they had a good idea from Di's smile what she was up to, considering what they'd discovered while they were researching this and the fact that they all wanted to stick it to Graham. Once Graham and the Administrator of the DEA had been linked in, Di informed them that the diamond had been recovered, so the terrorists wouldn't be getting their missiles, and she also informed them that Peyman Alahi had been captured as well and was currently on his way to Washington to be delivered to the DEA.

The Administrator was looking rather pleased with the way that this had gone and asked when he would be getting the diamond. At that, Di had to hide a smile.

"On that... I'm afraid that you will not be getting the diamond Administrator, as the President has made an executive decision that the Nadan-I-Noor is to be returned to its rightful owners to help shore up our relations with India. The State Department will be taking delivery of the diamond to hand it over to the Indian government in a formal ceremony. We realise that this means that we have not delivered the precise outcome you were expecting for this operation Administrator... Therefore the State Department has will be covering the cost of the operation in this instance, and Peyman Alahi will in effect be your compensation for the inconvenience."

The two men were enraged by this, Graham especially as he realised that he'd been outmanoeuvred _again_ by this bitch, but as the DNI had so pointedly reminded him, a Presidential order was something you couldn't fight against, so there was nothing that could be done about it now. Of course, the fact that he'd convinced the Administrator that using the Human Intersect team was the best way for them to get the diamond at minimal risk to themselves meant that he'd shot himself in the foot, because the Administrator had stuck his neck out on his word and the promise of a fabulous diamond that would make both of them rich, but all he'd gotten for that was a filthy little toad like Alahi. Meanwhile, Beckman got to have her fun, dangling the Nadan-I-Noor in front of them before giving it to someone else and they couldn't even complain about being charged for the operation when they didn't get what they were after, because they weren't!

This made it at least four, no five...six…seven...no _...eight_ nil to Beckman! The first was that business in Ninety Six, but in the last month he'd lost the Human Intersect Project _and_ Walker to her, then on top of that he'd lost one of the best agents he had left and got in a pile of shit over that debacle at the Intersect facility, she'd captured La Ciudad _and_ lost him all of his overseas support in that affair with the Brits, and now she'd earned major brownie points with the President and State Department by recovering the diamond _and_ probably cost him the DEA Administrator's support….

Maybe the smart thing to do would be to just bide his time and wait for her pathetic civilian Human Intersect to screw up as he knew he would, because every time he'd gone up against Beckman so far, it had cost him, and he couldn't afford to lose too much more until he'd strengthened his position…. as she had hurt him more than anyone else he'd gone up against. He was starting to realise that he'd been paying attention to the wrong Pit Bull, Casey was dangerous alright, but the bitch who held his leash was starting to look even more dangerous.

* * *

While Carina and Zondra hadn't planned on staying at El Castillo any longer than it took them to find places that suited their lifestyle, they soon found that they quite enjoyed sharing an apartment, and the apartment they were in _was_ quite comfortable and stylish. The convenience of living a couple of hundred yards from both of their 'work's made life a lot easier, and more to the point, they found that they _really_ liked living in the heart of their 'family' this way, so that they could see any of them whenever they wanted. It had only taken them a matter of days to decide to leave things the way they were.

They did have to settle into their cover jobs, but that wasn't too difficult either because in many ways this was the perfect cover for what they did, a paramilitary security company that was well armed to protect celebrities and corporate assets. Most of the ones who had come to Los Angeles to join Cinders had been working for the supposed parent company in Texas and its other franchises (which were all owned by their 'friends'), so they had experience in corporate security at least. Those few who hadn't been working in the security field were, like Carina and Zondra, quite capable of picking up what they needed for the 'job' due to their operative backgrounds.

Cinders Security was working out of the Shiloh Storage space while the bunker and their new offices were being built and fitted out. Over half of the Intersect team's bunker had already been in place, so all they really had to do was excavate, build the last of the walls and finish and fit it out, which shouldn't take long.

Casey was still arguing about staff though, at least he was with the young lady who was determined to become his receptionist and assistant. Alex McHugh was at least as stubborn as her father was, so those discussions were occasions to break out the popcorn and watch for the rest of them.

John had made sure that Alex was taught many things about their world and had supported her when she wanted to study criminal psychology at university, but they went head to head when she logically argued that the business needed believable receptionists to look legitimate... adding that leggy model types like Katy, Josie and Viv _wouldn't_ believable as receptionists in a _real_ security business before he had a chance to mention that they were organising Katy and Josie for that... and furthermore this would be the perfect part time job for her. Watching John founder as he tried in vain to counter his daughter's arguments was ever so entertaining for everyone else.

None of them were surprised when Alex got her way, because while she may have been over a foot shorter than Casey and half his weight, she could whip her father any day of the week. Most of the time she didn't even have to break out the plaintive "Dad?" that could make him crack in five seconds flat. She was a good girl though, she didn't gloat... much.

* * *

With all the effort required to get the Intersect team and Cinders Security established, they'd been dropping the ball with their business clients though, so when they came to a slow spell in the 'spy business', they all pitched in to make a push to catch up on that side of things. That was how they ended up working late one night, and as everyone was in the mood for Chinese, Chuck and Sarah did a food run. As cliché as it was, just about all of Chuck's favourite Chinese restaurants actually were _in_ Chinatown so they headed down there, the drive also gave them time to talk about the proposal that Auntie Di had made about changing their cover.

The purpose of Auntie Di's proposal was to build on the step they'd taken by getting married, and what she was proposing was that most of their cover businesses be officially bought out by Carmichael Industries, which would in turn lead into the scenario where Charles and Sarah Carmichael would be running Carmichael Industries and becoming a prominent power couple in society and business circles around the country. Having them become well known as a successful married couple would seriously erode Sarah's ability to operate in any other types of roles, while solidifying their cover. The timing for this could be easily explained away as being part of setting up the covers for the Human Intersect team, and the fact that Chuck's degrees from Stanford, MIT and Caltech were all in the name of Charles Carmichael also supported this move.

The other part of Auntie Di's proposal was even more popular with Chuck, Ellie and the other established members of the family, because she was planning to have the current form of Munchkin Technical Services and every other part of their previous cover lives eradicated completely. They had always hated the stupid requirements that had been forced on them by the petty and vindictive bureaucrats in the Cover Bureau, who had spitefully stated that this was more _believable_ than the sensible frameworks they had proposed through Di. The Cover Bureau was the sort of place you dumped personnel who couldn't make the grade anywhere else, so half of the bloody minded idiots who had set up the Bartowski siblings' cover lives were still there seventeen years later, and they were still getting their small minded pleasures out of making Chuck and Ellie's lives hell. They understood Di's rationale for going to the Cover Bureau for their new identities in Ninety One, but they all agreed that it had been a serious mistake.

The Cover Bureau's insistence on giving them a minimum wage background when they were living somewhere like Arcadia meant that they had stood out as charity cases all the way through Middle School and High School, couldn't have anything nice and were forced to earn scholarships to get into university (which had in turn forced the allocated accommodation and Bryce Larkin onto Chuck), and they tried to stop them advancing through High School or university any quicker than average students because that would supposedly attract too much attention to them, but Ellie and Chuck just annihilated everyone else so the school did that. The boring basic tech services work that was MTS's bread and butter and Ellie being forced to begin a relationship with a tool like Jethro were more examples of the bloody minded vindictiveness of the tools in the Cover Bureau, and they'd kept it up all this time because they were still holding a grudge about the fiery little Air Force Major tearing strips off them for the ridiculously stupid requirements they were imposing on her god children in Nineteen Ninety.

Unfortunately there was no structure to allow appeals to be made to anyone above them, so whatever the trolls in the Cover Bureau decided was final, so long as those cover lives existed, so what Auntie Di was proposing now was that they eradicate Chuck Bartowski's cover life completely.

The fact that that MTS was a purely on-site tech services provider so no-one had ever come to or even knew where the office was made it easy to get rid of. They just planned to cut off the phones, make a few frantic phone calls to tell their established customers that someone blew up their business and the FBI told them that someone with mob connections was looking for them because it was believed that they'd given the authorities some very incriminating information about them from one of of their customers' computers. Apparently the ones who _did_ give that information to the authorities were too important to endanger, so they were all being put in the witness protection scheme.

They _did_ feel a little guilty about letting their long standing customers down like that, but none of them were going to miss MTS at all.

* * *

Chuck also knew that Auntie Di was pushing hard to get promotions and medals processed for Sarah's military IDs, especially her Army Sarah Walker ID. When Sarah's military identities were created back around Mid-Ninety Eight, they'd all been made about thirteen or fourteen years older than she was, because they'd started her at O-2 or O-3 with about ten or eleven years service and a few years time in grade, so that she had moved up to O-3 or O-4 level by the time she went into the advanced flight training etc in 1999. By the time she became a agent in 2002 she was at O-4 across the board, but the CIA hadn't bothered progressing her military IDs since then.

Many of the special operations missions she'd been doing with the military since Ninety Nine could be easily mapped to her military IDs and there had been recommendations for medals and commendations for her in the system from more than a few of those operations, so Auntie Di had been using the records he removed from the CIA's systems before he sanitised them to get promotions and medals signed off by the big brass for Sarah, getting them backdated as far as possible so that Sarah was now at O-5 level for the Air Force, Navy and Marines, but she was an Army Colonel, with another grade to come. He smiled as he thought about how she was going to react when she found out that her aunt had _also_ been establishing her identity as Shanti, saying that she hadn't been commonly known by that name because she'd only used it when she was operating with the rest of the team.

Di was doing the same thing, albeit to a lesser degree, with Carina and Zondra, so they were both showing up as O-4s in three services and O-5s in one service.

Auntie Di obviously had big plans for Sarah, just like she did for him and Ellie, and she was trying to make sure that Carina and Zondra were well established too.


	12. East, West, Who's Your Daddy?

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, this isn't the real world and it's not a Disney Princess tale.**

When they reached the Bamboo Dragon, an old favourite of Chuck's from when he was a teenager, they ordered the food for the horde back at the office and stood out the front of the restaurant, talking as they waited. One time Chuck glanced up though, he flashed on the tattoo in the inside of the forearm of one of the waitresses. Sarah felt him stiffen and snuggled into him, stretching up on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek and whisper "Did you flash?" He put his arm around her and bent down to kiss her on the other cheek to give her a clear line of sight. "Yes, the waitress at table twelve? She's Mei-Ling Cho, China's top operative, she's never been on U.S. soil before."

Sarah managed to make her gasp at that seem as though it was because of the way he was kissing his way up her jaw line and whispered. "Are you sure?"

"The Intersect is!"

"Shit!"

She jumped, stepping back to get her phone from her pocket as if it had just rung on vibrate and called Casey on speed dial. As she brought the phone to her face she said "Da Dyadya Alexei?" as if she was answering a call before entering into a few bursts of rapidfire Russian in a whining tone, glancing at Chuck and turning away to whisper the woman's name as if she were hiding something from him. When she'd hung up, looking upset, he asked what that was about? "Uncle Alexei is getting impatient for his food, and he won't accept that the delay isn't my fault!"

He put his arms around her and kissed her on the cheek to comfort her, whispering in her ear "You really are incredible, you know?" She kissed him on the cheek and responded "Why thank you kind sir, but I do have to be to keep up with my husband! Casey said to try to keep an eye on her and he'll be here as soon as possible."

He nodded "It was evil to use Russian though."

She gave him an innocent look at that "What? I had to use a language that most people wouldn't understand!" but gave herself away with the grin she finished with. He just grinned and kissed her again.

When they got their food, Chuck used his phone to bring the van up remotely so that they could sit in it and cover the Bamboo Dragon with its cameras, continuing the discussion about Auntie Di's plans and eating while they were watching multiple windows on the smart glass screen across the inside of the windscreen. One thing they weren't sure about was the caveat that had been made that Roan wanted to create the offices and penthouse for the Carmichaels that would 'create the image of who they were', because while Chuck loved Roan as the supportive Uncle he'd been to him ever since he was ten, he was under no delusions about the incorrigible lethario's character. Knowing his Uncle Roan as he did, he envisioned a totally decadent pleasure palace that would project an image that Chuck didn't think either of them wanted to be associated with.

It took over half an hour for Casey to turn up, and when he arrived he handed Chuck the thumb drive with everything they had on file for Mei-Ling Cho to plug into the on board computer. Sarah was getting more and more pissed off as they went through the reports on the very impressive Lieutenant Colonel Cho though, because she now knew how Chuck had known that she was China's top operative, and that _had_ _n't_ come from the Intersect! Eventually she spat out.

"Every one of these reports was written by Charles Carmichael, Philip Smith, Conrad Hunter, Eleanore Carmichael, Nora Jones, Eleanora Hunter, Emmeline Boudreaux, Emma Burdon, Lisa Black, Marie Lestrange, Maryam Krieger or Elizabeth White!"

"Yes?"

"They're _all_ you, Ellie, Mama and Auntie Mary! Didn't you think it relevant to share that you guys are apparently the resident authorities on this agent?"

"Not really, no."

Her voice was dangerously low as she asked. "Why not?"

"Because nothing that we know about her from our research or the Intersect gives us any indication of what the hell she's doing here! I'm flying blind and I don't like it!"

At that point, Casey spoke up from the rear. "Enough with the domestics! She's leaving!"

When they looked back at the screen, sure enough she was hurrying in bike gear around the corner from the kitchen entrance out back, which served as the employees' entrance. There was also a stretch limousine pulling away from the front of the Bamboo Dragon so Chuck asked. "Did you see who's in that limo John?"

"Ben Lo Pan, he owns half of Chinatown and he's believed to be big in the triads too." Just then Mei-Ling reappeared on a sports bike and started following the limo.

Chuck mused, "Well it looks like he's the one she's after" as he shut down the computer displays and pulled out to follow them, having an electric vehicle which could take off instantly was handy.

* * *

The limo pulled up at another building in Chinatown and they hung back as Mei-Ling put her bike out sight around the corner from the limo, using the zoom lenses and wide spectrum imaging of the van's cameras to see what she was doing as she popped the compartment behind the seat open and extracted a couple of pistols. Casey made a crack about 'crotch rocket and Glocks, my kinda gal', but Chuck corrected him distractedly. "Those aren't Glocks John, they're Chinese military issue QSW Oh Sixes, and that's a worry because those particular pistols are normally used by their agents for sanctioned assassinations."

As they watched her climb the drainpipe to the roof of the building that Lo Pan had gone into, Sarah and Casey reluctantly agreed that it was their duty to stop the assassination of a prominent foreign national on U.S. soil. It rankled when they told that he couldn't be seen to be part of this so he had to stay in the van, but when Sarah got upset at his reaction he kissed her and told it was OK and to go.

Sarah and Casey didn't have any trouble dealing with guard outside the private club in the building, but when Sarah saw Mei-Ling with her pistols in hand and called out "Gun!" Lo Pan's guards started shooting at her and Casey! While most of the guards were shooting it out with Sarah, Casey and Mei-Ling, a small group got Lo Pan out of the club and the building.

When the doors burst open and they hustled Lo Pan out of the building, Chuck swore, grabbing his Glock 20 with a couple of extra mags and jumped out to run through the shadows towards them. He was almost up to the building when the doors burst open again and two more guards came out, dragging a third man who was bound and hooded between them. Chuck had to slow to a fast meander as he came into the light, but they took no notice of him as they threw the man into the trunk and jumped in as the limo took off.

Chuck broke into a run, drawing the 20 as he did so, but shooting at any viable target from this angle would have endangered the man in the trunk, so he swore and grabbed one of the other mags from his back pocket. He released the mag in the pistol, catching it as it fell, ramming home the other mag and pulling back the slide to eject the round in the chamber and load the first round from the new mag in one continuous movement. He stopped to carefully take aim, firing a subsonic tracker round into the safest part of the bodywork he had a clear shot at before quickly tucking the pistol into the back of his jeans and bending down to pick up and pocket the round he'd ejected, just before Mei-Ling burst out of the building with her pistols extended at the rapidly departing limo.

* * *

When Chuck shouted "Don't shoot!" before she could fire, she turned the pistols on him. "Where did they take him?"

"Who?"

"My brother! Where did they take him?"

Playing a confused civilian seemed the safest course when faced with an aggravated assassin pointing two pistols at him, so Chuck said. "He must have been that guy they threw in the trunk, that was why I tried to stop you shooting at the car, I don't know who they were or where they went, I was just passing and saw them throwing a guy in the trunk and ran up here to try and stop them."

She was starting to calm down a little when Sarah and Casey came barrelling out of the doors and freaked when they saw Chuck with two pistols pointing at his face, shouting "Federal agents, drop your weapons!" and aiming their pistols at Mei-Ling.

Mei-Ling couldn't understand the frustrated sigh that the man in front of her gave at that, but she saw all the signs of fear suddenly disappear as he said in flawless Chinese. " _Lieutenant Colonel Cho, you cannot help your brother by getting yourself killed, and I can assure you that_ _ **will**_ _happen if you harm any of us. I do not want to see you dead, and I definitely do not want my companions harmed, as they mean a great deal to me. Please, if you lower your weapons, I promise you that we will help you find your brother, I fired a tracker into the car just before you came out so we will be able to follow them."_

She just stared at him, she couldn't understand any of this, the way he was looking down the barrels of her pistols without showing a shred of fear, the fact that he knew precisely who she was _or_ how he spoke to her in such fluent Chinese. He was making sense though, because now she could see them she recognised the two agents behind him, there was absolutely no way she could take on both of them and she would need help if she was to locate and rescue Li-Wei, so she lowered her pistols.

He nodded thanks when she did so and held out his hand, speaking again, still in Chinese " _It will help diffuse the tension if you hand over your weapons, they will be returned to you later."_ She glanced at the other two and did as he asked. He bowed to her and turned to show the pistols to the others. They lowered their pistols but Sarah's fury was obvious as she gave Chuck a ' _This isn't over!_ ' look and Mei-Ling murmured behind him. "She is not happy with you!"

He shook his head regretfully. "No, she is not!"

* * *

They quickly manhandled Mei-Ling's bike into the back of the van and headed for the apartments in Echo Park. They slipped into the one furthest away from Skip and Jethro's apartment, which they kept free for this sort of thing, and Chuck fired up the computer there, getting to work while Mei-Ling told her story.

He appeared totally engrossed in what he was doing, but often asked for clarification on points of what she was saying, so he was certainly paying attention. She observed him as she was talking, trying to reconcile the fact that he was obviously the one in charge, even though these other two were both regarded as being in the top rank of spies around the world, and were definitely among the very best the United States had, yet they deferred to this one out of respect rather than obligation. She was also paying close attention to the woman, Agent Sarah Walker, whom she knew to be one of the most formidable spies in the western world, if not the entire world, because it was obvious that she was totally in love with this man.

After about fifteen to twenty minutes of this Chuck suddenly swore, hitting the desk hard enough for it to make a cracking noise, and angrily stood up, stalking off. Mei-Ling saw Agent Walker look after him in concern, but they went to the computer to see what had angered him. What she saw up on the screens astounded Mei-Ling, because it appeared that he'd somehow gotten into some of the Chinese government's most secure computer systems to extract everything about her, Li-Wei and his kidnapping. It also had the triad's demands for the exchange of a senior triad captain for Li-Wei and the government's refusal of their demand, but she couldn't see what had angered this…. Chuck so much until Agent Walker tapped on one screen. "This, this is what upset him."

Mei-Ling took note of the fact that Agent Walker was _also_ capable of reading Chinese reasonably, or more likely _very_ , well, because as far as she knew this was something that the Chinese government hadn't been aware of. Which again brought up her earlier thought, just what was a group with three people of such calibre doing buried away here in Los Angeles? But even though Agent Walker had pointed it out, Mei-Ling couldn't understand what there was about that document that upset him so, it was just the official notice that she had gone against her orders and was therefore officially disavowed by the People's Republic, it was essentially her death warrant but she knew that that would happen when she came after Li. It was a price she was willing to pay to get her little brother back to his family.

She turned a confused look at Agent Walker, but while the woman was talking to her, she was still looking after her man in concern. "Family and what's right is everything to Chuck, so to him sanctioning you for trying to save your brother because they just wrote him off is very, very wrong."

Mei-Ling looked at John Casey for an explanation but he shook his head, indicating that he couldn't explain it, it was just the way the man was.

Chuck came back with a glass in one hand, and a bottle in the other. The bottle was over a third empty and the look John Casey gave it said that it had been unopened prior to this. Chuck started speaking as he returned. "We have two problems here that we need to address. The first, obviously, is how to rescue your brother, hopefully unharmed, and the other is how to return him safely to the People's Republic. From that…." pointing to her death warrant "You can't return him, as that would most probably get both of you killed. The safest bet would be to get our State Department people to return him, but even though we have some pull with them at the moment, they will undoubtedly demand a price for their assistance, and that price will most probably be you, or at least what you know."

"No! I will not betray my country, I could never return if I did that!"

"I'm sorry to say this Colonel, but that..." Pointing to the document that amounted to her death warrant again "Says that you could never return anyway. However, I am sure that you know many things that you could share which would not cause any significant harm to the People's Republic?"

He waited for her reluctant nod and then went on. "Then use _those_ things to pay your and your brother's way and we will do our best to get you put into the government's witness protection scheme afterwards."

John Casey snorted at that and Mei-Ling looked at him with a question in her eyes, his response was. "Let's just say that this isn't the first time Chuck's engineered this type of thing Colonel, so when _he_ says 'we will do our best', it's pretty much a guarantee that it will be done."

She turned back to Chuck. "Very well, I agree.… Chuck."

He nodded. "Okay, let's get your brother back then!"

The tracker confirmed that the limo had gone to Lo Pan's mansion and that it was still there. Chuck collected what information he could find about the security systems and force in Lo Pan's mansion and they put together a plan for Casey, Sarah and Mei-Ling to go in, attaching remote access devices to the security and computer networks so that he could get control of them. While he was doing this, he surreptitiously sent a message to El Castillo to bring in the full Cinders Security crew for backup. They'd do this with just John, Sarah and Mei-Ling as they'd agreed if they could, but the second anything went wrong he would be sending the full team in, he wasn't willing to leave Sarah's, or any of their, safety to chance.

Sarah came over to wrap her arms around his shoulders as he explained a few things, and when Mei-Ling didn't have line of sight to the screen he brought up the window with the message for her to see. He closed the window when she nodded to say that she'd read it and kissed him on the cheek.

* * *

When the team sent him a message to say that their ETA at Lo Pan's was about ten minutes before they could get there, they left the apartment and headed there themselves, with Chuck driving the van slowly down the street for them to jump out on the move before parking out of sight to get into the systems once they enabled his access. It went to plan initially, as soon as they plugged him into the security systems, he took them over, turning off alarms, unlocking doors and directing them to the guards so that they could take them out quietly. As he was doing this, he was also hacking into the computer systems and copying everything off them he could. Then the house camera feeds suddenly cut out and John, Sarah and Mei-Ling's cameras showed them being taken, so he sent the rest of the team in.

He saw the team going in over the fence, but was sure that no-one else would have. They went through the house like silent death, taking out the guards with suppressed weapons, knives or their bare hands. When they reached the room where Lo Pan was cackling about his brilliant plan though, Chuck ordered them to hold off until Lo Pan had told them his plan, unless there was any indication of any action against Sarah, John, Mei-Ling or Li-Wei, in which case of course they were to take out everyone else in the room. As soon as Lo Pan told the guards to get rid of them Chuck gave the team the go order, and all of Lo Pan's guards were down in seconds. Chuck thanked them and asked them to deliver Lo Pan to the FBI office and tell the FBI that the A/V and computer evidence would be sent to them as soon as he'd packaged it up.

* * *

When Sarah and the others came out, Chuck was waiting at the van for them and Mei-Ling just smiled when Sarah went straight up to kiss him. Normally she would have been angry to be left out of the loop that much in an operation, but given the fact that she would have lost Li and they would have probably all died without his backup plan, she could hardly complain. In the van on the way back to Echo Park, Mei-Ling told her "Your man, he is exceptional" and Sarah just nodded happily. "I know!"

At Echo Park, John took Li-Wei to another room while they contacted Di to have her make the necessary arrangements with the State Department to deliver Li-Wei to the Chinese Consulate, in return for Lieutenant Colonel Cho's information. Sarah took note of the way that Mei-Ling was staring at Chuck right through this and wasn't happy about it. She was even less happy when Mei-Ling asked to speak privately with him after they cut the link, so it took Chuck ten minutes to convince her that he'd be OK, and that they'd leave the door part way open so that he could call for help if he needed to. When she finally agreed with great reluctance, Chuck directed Mei-Ling to the spare bedroom where they could talk.

Mei-Ling looked at the partly open door and quietly asked. "Do they know that you're Captain Carmichael, Colonel Hunter, Lieutenant Colonel Smith and almost certainly several other senior intelligence officers as well?"

Chuck looked at her for about a minute before he said. "I do not know what you are talking about Colonel Cho."

The look she gave him said that she _knew_ that he was the people she'd named without any doubt, so when he grudgingly accepted that he wasn't going to bluff her he shook his head. "Yes they do, but we'd prefer to keep that very quiet, how did you know?"

"I didn't at first, I just thought you were someone exceptional, but as I watched you work I started recognising the patterns that I've been observing while studying your work for the last thirteen or fourteen years, though I didn't realise that all those identities applied to one man before this. You have quite a following in China you know, people like myself who follow your achievements, because even though you are not at all popular with our superiors because of how often you've thwarted the People's Republic, many appreciate and respect your brilliance."

"What do you intend to do with this knowledge Colonel Cho?"

"Nothing, Cap…." Chuck held up his hand "Chuck, please" She nodded "Nothing, Chuck. I am in your debt, you and your people's, for saving my brother. From what I have seen, you know my culture well enough to understand that this is a life debt. I would never do anything against you or your people and whatever you need of me, you have but to ask and I will deliver it to the best of my ability."

He looked at her musingly. "Would that commitment extend to your working with us?"

She shook her head. "There is no way that your government would ever trust a defector being anywhere near someone as important as you…. Chuck."

"You'd be surprised by what we can arrange Colonel, the question remains, would you be prepared to work with us _if_ it could be arranged?"

She smiled at him, she was beginning to see how Agent Walker could be so in love with him and so infuriated with him at the same time. "I do not believe that this is possible, but yes, if it could be arranged, it would be my honour to work with you, Chuck."

He nodded and politely signalled her to follow him out of the room (as it wasn't likely to be healthy for her to come out until Sarah saw him safe and well), stopping down the hall where Sarah was standing with a VAL in her hands, ready to come in firing if anything happened. He filled her in on everything they'd discussed, and while initially hesitant she agreed that Mei-Ling would certainly make a great addition to the team. Back in the lounge room they asked Li-Wei if he'd wait in the other room for a few minutes with Major Casey again while they contacted their superiors and at Mei-Ling's reassuring nod he went with Casey.

Di looked suspicious when Chuck called again to tell her that some of the arrangements that she was making were going to have to be changed. When he explained what he was after she was adamant that there was no way that that could ever be approved and Mei-Ling slumped in resignation, convinced that it was as she'd expected, but she jumped when Sarah reached over to squeeze her hand. When she looked at her, Sarah smiled reassuringly and shook her head. Mei-Ling smiled hesitantly when she got the message... 'Don't give up yet!'

Mei-Ling was surprised when Chuck and the General's discussion changed to a excited, and sometimes angry, torrent of Russian that she couldn't follow, no more than a word here or there anyway. In the end, the General looked at Sarah, and while she looked unhappy at her agreeing with this, she shocked Mei-Ling when she smiled fondly at Chuck and said. "You'll be the death of me yet Honey, put it together and send it through. I'll let Mike know that I need to talk to him first thing in the morning. In the meantime I'll change the other arrangements as you've….. requested."

Chuck smiled at the screen. "Thanks Auntie Di!"

* * *

She shook her head at him and asked. "Have you thought about my proposal yet?"

Chuck looked at Sarah and she nodded happily, his smile for her stayed on his face as he turned back to the screen. "Yes Auntie Di, we like what you've laid out, but we're just a bit worried about what type of things Uncle Roan might have planned…."

She shook her head again. "Oh Honey, you know that he loves you and he'd never do anything to embarrass either of you, but if it makes you feel any better I promise that I'll look over all the plans and make sure that I have final sign-off on everything to ensure that he doesn't do anything you wouldn't like, would that work for you? Both of you?"

Chuck and Sarah looked at each other again and nodded with a smile, so Chuck answered. "Yes Auntie Di, that _would_ make us a lot more comfortable, thank you."

She nodded. "OK, I'll contact the State Department, FBI and US Marshals to make these changes to the arrangements for Colonel Cho, we'll let you know when and where to deliver Mister Cho in the morning for State Department to escort him to the Chinese Consulate. By the way, Bob has asked me to pass on the FBI's thanks for Lo Pan and the evidence you sent through for him. Night Honey." With that she cut the link.

Chuck turned to Mei-Ling, who was looking stunned. "I expect that you didn't get all of that?"

She shook her head.

"Okay, you'll be taken to Washington DC in the morning and will remain in our people's custody until you finish making your depositions. If State or anyone else tries to go off script, expand those sessions or take you away, General Beckman will order the depositions finished and our people will get you out of there. Once we get everything signed off by the relevant authorities, you'll come back here and work with us, under a different name of course, is that okay with you?"

She nodded, "Yes, but may I ask what that last part was about?"

Sarah stepped in to answer that. "Chuck and I are married, legally, but not openly. I don't know what Chinese Intelligence expects its female operatives to do for them nowadays, but some individuals in the American Intelligence community expect female agents to do things that I am no longer prepared to do, and I _always_ found utterly repulsive. What the General has proposed is that our cover identities be changed to that of a high profile successful married couple, so that I couldn't do those types of missions without compromising our established cover, and our team is too important for that to be allowed. Someone else who is part of our extended family has asked to be given leave to create our business and residential premises to present the right image, but while we love him... do you have a beloved uncle in your family who often has the tendency to be quite inappropriate Colonel?"

Mei-Ling laughed and nodded at that. "Well that's Uncle Roan! We had no doubt that he'll mean well, but it was the question of just what image would be presented that worried us, so having Auntie Di there to provide the necessary checks and balances makes us much more comfortable about what we'll see when it's done."

When Li-Wei came back with John, he wanted to know what Mei-Ling and Sarah were laughing about, but he joined in the laughter when Mei-Ling told him. " _They were just telling me that they have an uncle like Uncle Li Wei who you were named after in their family too."_

In the morning, Sarah and John delivered Li-Wei to the State Department people, and they were notified as soon as he was safely back on Chinese soil in their Consulate. That call came through just before they had to take Mei-Ling to Los Alamitos to be flown to DC to start her depositions.

* * *

The contractors arrived the next day to start preparations for the changes to El Castillo, so Uncle Roan's initial plans at least had obviously met with Auntie Di's approval.

The wedding planning committee ended up being made up of Ellie, Emma, Anna, Lou, Zoe, Katy, Josie, Lexie, Alex, Viv, the girls, Di, Roan and, surprisingly, John and Carina (Mary, Phoebe, Charly, Bry and Zondra all said that they didn't know enough about that sort of thing to be any help). They were pressured by the powers that be into having a military wedding, but no-one in the family was surprised when Chuck stuck to his guns about Anna being his 'best man', as she'd been his best friend and family since he was nine and he didn't turn his back on either, and Lou and her brothers had been among his small group of friends for half of that time, quite aside from Lou being his daughter's mother, so he insisted that they be part of the wedding party too. So Lou, her brothers Ben and David, John, Jeff, Skip, Albert Laurent, Sam, Rick, Rocky and Benjie were the other 'Groom's men' while Carina was the maid of honour and Ellie, Zondra, Robin, Lottie, Charlie, Viv, Kim, Katy, Alex, Lexie and Josie were the Bride's maids, and Uncle Bry was giving the bride away, so they had the wedding party sorted (it _was_ rather bigger than either of them had planned on, but once Sarah decided that she wanted Carina, Ellie, Zondra and all the girls standing with her, it had to be), and the wedding would be performed by a Navy Chaplin, so they were halfway there, sort of.

Roan had charmed Vera Wang into doing all the dresses for the wedding party, and she'd insisted on making up custom tailored Navy Dress Whites for the Chaplain and everyone on the groom's side as well, including the 'best man' and the other female 'groom's man', and dress white styled suits for David and Ben. At least with the J30s and 50s, getting everyone to New York for the fittings wasn't that difficult, but it did take up most of the day to get there and back, even when David and Ben were flown in for their fittings. Roan also found the perfect wedding location for them, a beautiful plantation house in Virginia, because the majority of the guests would be coming from DC so it would be easier for the LA contingent to fly over.

* * *

Chuck had them all worried when when he suddenly froze, staring at Rick, and then jumped up and rushed out of the room without a word when they were in the middle of talking about the wedding plans and winding up Ellie about why didn't she have her _own_ wedding if she was so excited about them.

What Chuck wasn't about to tell anyone until he'd _confirmed_ the details of what he'd seen was that he'd had a flash on Rick, or more to the point Rick's father, so he rushed off, hoping to get Auntie Phoebe to refute what he'd just seen about who Leroy Jackson actually was. That discussion didn't relieve his worries, because she described Leroy as a tall, imposing man who was reportedly one of the CIA's best black ops specialists, but he'd disappeared by the time she found out that she was pregnant. When he pressed her for more details she said that Leroy was one hell of a man and brilliant, and there was something underneath that made her feel he was worth the effort, but in general he was pretty much a bastard. She admitted that that had been part of what had attracted her to him actually because he was dangerous and exciting and one of the rare few who were man enough to be able to handle her. She shook her head with a laugh. "Like most girls I was into bad boys back then, and Leroy was sure that!"

She could see that this wasn't idle interest though, so she asked him straight out. "Charlie Honey, what's all this about?" (Cleopatra Jones had been one of the few agents who could keep up with the CIA's famous Agent Frost long enough for them to become close friends, so she'd known Chuck all his life, even if she hadn't had a chance to see much of him when he was little.)

He was starting to worry her now, because he was struggling to tell her, but eventually he forced it out. "It's like what happened with Carina... I flashed on Rick's birth certificate while we were winding up Ellie about getting married, and when I saw his father's name I flashed on that too and…. You see Leroy Jackson was the last name someone we're dealing with was used as an operative back then and…. Oh fuck it!... Do you think this could be an older version of Leroy Auntie Phoebe?"

Phoebe looked carefully at the image he brought up and started to nod thoughtfully, but then she took in the setting he was in and suddenly realised who this must be, so the look changed from thoughtful to horrified. "No Charlie... _please_ don't tell me that Ricky's father is really Langston Fucking _Graham_!"

Chuck suddenly had the woman who had terrified almost as many men as Frost crying hysterically in his arms. He pointed out that they didn't know for sure that Graham was Leroy, and was in the middle of promising her that he'd dig up whatever they needed to prove it one way or another when Rick, Ellie and Sarah arrived, because Sarah and Ellie had been worried about what was up with Chuck, and Rick came along to pick up the pieces if it was something bad. The tide turned for Rick when he found his mother crying in Chuck's arms and he rushed in to find out what was wrong, but Sarah and Ellie had seen the image on the screen and, being the brilliant women that they were, worked out what this was all about. Ellie looked at Chuck, horrified, and he nodded grimly. He would do the investigation as he'd promised Auntie Phoebe, but there was enough information in the Intersect to confirm the fact that the man that Ellie was destined to marry was in fact Langston Graham's son.

He was hoping to hold off on telling Rick until he had proven it beyond any shadow of a doubt, but Auntie Phoebe knew Charlie, and knew that he wouldn't have come to her unless he was already sure, so she pointed to the screen. "Ricky…. That's your Daddy."

Rick froze when he looked at the screen, because he'd been working for Auntie Di long enough to know who _that_ bastard was. He was almost pleading when he turned to Chuck. "No... You can't be sure Chuck! You're only guessing at this point, right?"

"As I said to Auntie Phoebe Rick, I'll do an investigation and…."

Phoebe cut him off at that point. "Don't give him any false hopes Charlie, you already knew when you came to me, you just needed me to say it… You're sure that Ricky's father is Graham, aren't you?"

He nodded regretfully. "Yes Auntie Phoebe, I was desperately hoping that you'd tell me something to refute what I was seeing, but yes, I'm pretty much certain that Langston Graham is Rick's _biological_ father."

Phoebe gave him a grateful smile for that distinction, because while Graham may have fathered Ricky, he never had been, and never _would_ be, a father to her son. They talked Rick through the shock of this news, and then Ellie announced that this didn't change anything for her, she still wanted to marry him, the sooner the better! That led to Sarah and Ellie deciding on the spot to make it a double wedding, but Phoebe threw a bucket of cold water over the excited discussion by pointing out that Mary had to be told who her son-in-law to be's biological father was before this went any further, so they called for Mary and Emma to come to the room, and opened a secure link to Di as well.

They were all horrified by the news, but equally determined to hold onto the distinction that Graham was nothing more than Rick's _biological_ father. When Di tried to lighten the mood by suggesting that Phoebe could have been a little more choosy about the men she slept with, that sparked a round of 'You can talk!s' that had all four of the older women blushing about some of the choices they'd made back then, though Mary apparently had rather less to be embarrassed about than the others.

* * *

When everyone was feeling better, they called in the rest of the wedding planners to tell them that it would be a double wedding now, but when they arrived Sarah rounded on John.

"What about you?"

"What so you mean?"

"You talk big about how much my sister means to you but you aren't going to do anything about it, _are_ you? So my sister is good enough to sleep with but not marry... is _that_ it Casey?"

The others stepped back as they were confronted with what few people had ever seen and lived... a totally enraged John Casey. He was almost frothing at the mouth as he screamed at her. "Don't you _ever_ say that! I'd marry her today if she'd have me!"

Sarah smirked as she turned to Carina. "Well Sis, Will you?"

"Will I _what_?"

"He's just declared that he'd marry you today if you'd have him, _Will_ you?"

The glare that Carina was directing at her would have scared most people, but Sarah just kept smirking as she waited for an answer. Eventually Carina spat out _"YES!"_ angrily, but her expression softened as she turned to John. "Yes Johnny, I'll have you."

They both knew quite well that Sarah had just done exactly what she'd ripped into Di about in manoeuvring them into this, but they also knew, thanks to Mary, what protections being married would give Carina _and_ that they would have probably taken years to get there on their own, so they weren't too upset with her about it.

Sarah just grinned. "Great! So it's going to be a _triple_ wedding!"

Kim replaced Carina as Sarah's main of honour, Zoe was added as Ellie's matron of honour, Rocky became Rick's best man, Zondra became Carina's maid of honour and Sam Colt became John's best man, Gypsy Colt was added as another bride's maid and Michael Weston and Javier Cruz as extra groom's men to balance out the wedding party numbers and Stephen and Roan to give away Ellie and Carina. When they contacted Vera to ask whether she was prepared to cover all three weddings, she tore strips off of them for even _consider_ _ing_ that anyone else would be touching any part of this wedding.

Now that Rick was to be a groom though, there were comments from those who knew the system that it would be a little embarrassing for a Navy Lieutenant to be to so prominent in a high profile wedding with the Admirals, Captains and Commanders up there, especially with Anna being a Captain and Rick's bride being an Admiral. They suggested that Rick should be married as an Army Lieutenant Colonel and John as a Marine Colonel but Vera wasn't at all pleased with the idea of the Army and Marines Dress Uniforms ruining the imagery she had planned (she was picturing an all white wedding with ivory ribbons and gardenias in the snow with the lovely white stone plantation house as the backdrop and Ellie and Rick were just as taken by that winter wonderland imagery as Sarah and Chuck were).

That gave Auntie Di an idea and she called the Secretary of Defense. After they discussed the fact that Colonels Coburn and Colt's primary ranks were in fact in the Marines, Lieutenant Colonel Noble and Colonel Johnson's were in the Army and Lieutenant Colonel Johnson's (Skip's real name was Michael Johnson) was in the Air Force, Vera found herself being flown to DC the next day to talk the Secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force, Chief of Staff of the Army and Air Force, Commandant of the Marine Corps and Chief of the Navy about allowing Army, Marines and Air Force's discontinued full white Dress Whites to be worn in the Wedding Party, and agreeing to other dispensations as well.

By the end of the day, they had formal dispensations from the Army, Marines and Air Force for the wedding party and others in notable roles at the wedding to wear their services' discontinued full white dress uniforms, _and_ a dispensation for _all_ attending to wear miniature ribbons rather than medals and miniature badges on all uniforms from all four services for the wedding. Of course, this meant that any of the ones they talked to who hadn't already been on the guest list _were_ now.

There was more than a little grumbling going on about discontinued uniforms being formally approved to be worn for a wedding and the firm…. _request_ … from the ranking groom that anyone who was required to attend their wedding in uniform wear the most conservative version of their uniform allowed, and that _all_ join the wedding party in only wearing miniature ribbons and badges as per the specific dispensations issued for their wedding. It was the final note on that request that had most men who complained sleeping on the couch though. 'It would greatly appreciated if all would honour this request so that all three brides can remember this most important day with joy, rather than disappointment because their wedding day was turned into a three ring circus.'

* * *

While there was grumbling elsewhere, these dispensations made those organising the weddings quite happy. Vera's people had two more bridal gowns and two more uniforms to make for the wedding party (plus at least thirty more uniforms for others with roles in the wedding), and there were four styles of uniform to be made now rather than one, plus the white suits styled like the Navy dress whites for the two Israeli men in the wedding party and the dress she was making for one of the new grooms' mother, but she was excited about how the wedding had suddenly expanded into a _triple_ wedding with thirty in the combined wedding party.

Vera _was_ a little perturbed though when she discovered that two of the original bride's maids were the original groom's sisters, two more of the brides' maids were his _daughters_ , and one of the female groom's men was his daughters' mother! The original bride had _seemed_ to be a strong woman, but she couldn't imagine this being anything other than her being forced to include them. Sarah saw this going through her head and pulled her aside for a quiet word. "It was _my_ idea Vera, not Chuck's! You see I grew up with him and Ellie until I was seven, and even though Chuck and I had decided that we were going to get married one day by the time we were five, Ellie was always like a big sister to me, and Lexie was like a little sister. By the time I managed to come back to the family earlier this year, Chuck had another sister, _and_ two lovely daughters, and I had two stepsisters and a cousin, and two more who are as good as cousins as well, so _I_ wanted all of them to be up there with us. Carina and Zondra have been my best friends for the last five or six years... and on top of that I just found out Carina is actually both my half sister and cousin... while Anna, who is Chuck's 'best man', and Lou, who's Lottie and Charlie's mother, are a lesbian couple…."

She paused to let that sink in. "You see Anna has been Chuck and Ellie's best friend for about eighteen years, and the only reason Lou wasn't there for the same period was that they were all experimenting with sex together when the girls' hormones started going wild, and Lou became pregnant at thirteen so her father dragged her off to Israel! My Aunt... the General... tracked her down and brought her and the girls back seven years ago after Anna let slip about both of them experimenting with Chuck but finding out that he didn't do it for them that way when they were thirteen, because she guessed that that may have had something to do with Lou's sudden disappearance. Then after Carina and Zondra joined us Chuck was checking their records and discovered that my Aunt had had an affair with my father when she was at university about four years before he met my Mama, she got pregnant but was in no position to raise a baby on her own so she gave her up for adoption without telling anyone about her, and that's how we're all together!"

Vera was shaking her head, as this had to be the most bizarre story she'd ever heard, but it obviously worked for them because they were all very close and happy, so she wasn't going to argue. The brides agreed to let her run with another idea she had for the ladies' wedding outfits, but couldn't promise to wear them. This was to make uniform styled evening jackets to go with the wedding and brides' maids' dresses that displayed their proper ranks and miniature medal ribbons and badges. While the rules forbid mixing uniforms and civilian dress, these weren't actually uniforms…. but it _was_ a grey area, and the SEALs would be insulted if Ellie wore her's without her SEAL trident, but that was something they'd always had to keep quiet.

Sarah _did_ catch how Chuck had tried to quickly finish that discussion by telling Vera that they'd send all the rank insignia and medal ribbons over together... and seeing that she knew about Ellie's and Lou's ranks and medals she was pretty sure that that had to have something to do with _her._

That was all explained at their next stop... in DC, for her to go through the formal promotion ceremonies for her various military identities and be awarded the various military medals that had been approved for her. (Bonnie and Cly managed to change her face, hair and body shape in between the presentation ceremonies so she went into the presentation ceremonies for each identity as a different woman, those two were incredible!) She was also awarded the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor along with Chuck and Casey for stopping the bombing of the Pacific League Security Conference (one of the identities they'd created for her in the early Nineties had been made an FBI Special Agent, so they were all being awarded the Medal of Valor as FBI Agents). When the bomb had been examined, it was confirmed that if it had gone off, it would have almost certainly brought the Hotel down and killed thousands of people inside, starting with the many prominent figures right there in the room who were attending the Pacific League Security Conference, so stopping that certainly met the criteria for the medal. Carina and Zondra were both promoted to their current ranks and awarded their medals (they'd both seen plenty of action with special ops groups over the last twelve years or so too) and Lieutenant Colonel Noble was also promoted to a full Colonel in the Army while they were there, the promotion _was_ genuinely in recognition of his achievements, but the timing was picked to prevent his lesser rank marring the pageantry of the wedding.

When they gave her the 'Shanti' name badge to wear and explained how the story was being spun, Sarah quite liked the idea of being Shanti to Chuck's Mowgli, just as Rick was Daruka to Ellie's Raksha (she didn't miss how it helped shore up Auntie Di's story about her being part of the group from the start either).

While Vera had both couples together in New York, she managed to wrangle agreement for her to have creative control of the wedding venue from them as well, because she wanted this to be perfect! It didn't take much to get that agreement from them though, because they all loved her vision of what their wedding should be.

Of course now they had to worry about whether Stephen could stay on an even keel for long enough to give Ellie away and get through the wedding without causing a scene, but all they could do on that front was keep their fingers crossed.

* * *

They'd also slipped into Washington a few times through this period to try and locate Graham, the DEA Administrator and any other people of interest's hiding places and remove and destroy any and all evidence that Graham and his cronies had been keeping off-line that related to Sarah, Carina or... hell, or any of them.

* * *

In the middle of this, Langston Graham was forced to come to the Human Intersect Team again in an attempt to recover someone that the CIA had lost and couldn't locate. He would have preferred to just have this embarrassment eliminated before he had a chance talk to anyone, but he wasn't dumb enough to try and demand that the Intersect Team do _that_. That was why he painted Laszlo Mahnovski as a high value asset who had turned into a homicidal lunatic, hoping to instil enough doubt in them to ensure that when Mahnovski did the sort of paranoid and violent things he was bound to do, they would misconstrue his actions and shoot him when they tried to recover him.

Graham's problem was that he still had no idea of just how much was stored in the Intersect database, and even less about what Chuck, especially, could get out of the CIA's systems and archives. That meant that as soon as he identified Laszlo as a high value asset who they wanted recovered, but who had killed his handlers quite violently (supplying copious amounts of gruesome images to emphasise this) in a psychotic incident when he escaped from the facility where he was working, the alarm bells started going off, so Chuck immediately started digging through the CIA's systems to find out everything there was to know about Laszlo Mahnovski.

He also didn't know any of them very well if he thought that he could make the agents in _this_ team nervous enough to shoot Laszlo without first trying to find a way to capture him safely.

The others couldn't work out why Chuck got quieter and quieter, the deeper he delved into Laszlo's story, until he put it all up on screen. They understood then, because if not for Diane and Bry spiriting him and Ellie away as soon as his father disappeared, this nightmare could well have been _his_ life. That chilled everyone's blood, and Casey summed it up well when he looked up at the screen and said "Chuck me!" in a despairing, horrified tone.

Laszlo was a genius, at Chuck's level if not above in scientific areas, though he didn't appear to have Chuck's range or the other abilities he got from his mother. When he was eleven, a CIA recruiter who'd been trolling for late high school and college age prospects had discovered Laszlo in an arcade parlour. Having absolutely no morals or compunctions about taking a child's life away, he had convinced Laszlo's blue collar parents that the CIA could give their son all the opportunities he needed to make the most of himself…. and kept rubbing in the fact that _they_ could never do that for him until they signed control of Laszlo over to the CIA's representatives.

Laszlo had earned his degrees at fourteen and his Ph D at seventeen all right, but that was the last he'd seen of the outside world. The CIA had been using him like they had Stefan to create whatever technology they wanted, but they'd kept him locked away in an underground bunker without any access to the outside world in an effort to ensure that they didn't lose him they way they had Stefan. That was one of the few things that Graham had told them the truth about, because Laszlo _was_ a lunatic. Due to the fact that he never saw anyone but his handlers and CIA agents or left the facility where he was, according to the reports they found, the life he'd been forced to live had driven Laszlo more than a little crazy!

Then there was the fact that they'd been using drugs and sex to try and keep him under control in there for years, and it was a toss up as to which of those things would have screwed with his head more... Being so drugged up that he didn't know what was a dream and what was reality for days or weeks... The withdrawal from the drugs when they decided that they had more work for him... Or having women coming in, convincing him that they loved him and screwing his brains out for weeks or months at a time, then walking out without a backwards glance when they were told that the assignment was over. The more they read, the more they wondered how Laszlo wasn't worse than he was.

* * *

Reading this made one thing clear to everybody, they had to get to this guy before the CIA did and rescue him! They knew that the CIA would have had a head start, because Graham wouldn't have engaged them until he'd just about given up on his own people finding him, but they _did_ have one big advantage, this being that whereas the CIA's agents thought like... well... agents, Chuck, Anna and their crowd, but especially Chuck and Anna, could think like nerds, like Laszlo. Going through Laszlo's history, it took less than an hour for Chuck to work out where he'd most likely be, in the arcades where the Antichrist had found him and taken away his innocence, his life, when he was eleven.

Time was of the essence here because they were racing to get to him before the CIA, so they were throwing options out all over the place. Casey was too old and looked like a cop, Sarah, Carina and Zondra, hell, most of the girls, were too tall and beautiful for nerdland, and he'd pick most of them as agents after being screwed into submission by so many other agents. Lou, Jeff and Skip were out because they didn't have the background to look after themselves in a dangerous situation (IE: shooting it out with the CIA) and Jeff was too old anyway. It didn't take them long to accept that Chuck and Anna were the only ones who could pull this off, as Anna had been part of that world, could make herself look more ordinary with makeup and at not much over five foot tall, she didn't stand out like the other girls, but she had at least as much training as most of them, as much experience at this as half of them too. They took along modified 'tranq' darts that contained a drug left the target conscious, but without control of their motor functions, so they couldn't call out or struggle. Sarah, Casey, Ellie, Carina and Zondra would be waiting in a van just off-site to extract them or deal with the CIA if they turned up.

All of this was sorted out in the fifteen minutes it took for Chuck and Anna to change their appearance enough to blend into the crowd in the arcades while the others organised the darts etc and jump in the van, then they were on their way to the Santa Monica Pier. Anna found Laszlo in under fifteen minutes as he was involved in a Guitar Shredder battle with some bearded loser who was way too old to be acting like a brat, throwing a tantrum the way that he was. Even with Laszlo's rampant paranoia, Anna had learnt enough from Uncle Roan to get him off into a dark corner to make out, and they were just starting to get into this when Chuck suddenly appeared behind Laszlo and stuck the dart into him, grabbing him to prevent him collapsing. Anna bitched at him about not getting there earlier, but she knew that he'd moved in as soon as he could.

Chuck quickly got Laszlo's duster off of him and shrugged into it, making other changes as well so that neither of them looked like they had earlier. He gave Anna a hug and sent her out one way while he 'walked' Laszlo out another way (making it look easy even though he was carrying him), saying "You promised you weren't going to do that shit any more! This is the last time Joe, you're on your own after this!" as he went. Those who heard put it down to a habitual drug user who always had to be bailed out and looked after by his buddy, and half of them were saying to themselves. 'Yeah, you say that now, but next time he calls you'll come to bail his arse out again, because that's what friends do.'

Anna was out front watching, so as soon as Chuck appeared with Laszlo, she called the van in. It was there in a flash and Casey hauled Laszlo in, with Chuck and Anna hopping in and the van taking off within twenty seconds. Sarah swore as she quietly drove off though, because she'd spotted at least two CIA agents heading for the pier, so they'd only just gotten him out in time. A few more minutes and the CIA would have had him, or they would have been shooting it out with them on the crowded pier.

* * *

Ellie administered the antidote to the drug Chuck had given him, but gave him a sedative to put him out. Back at the Castle, they put him in one of the apartments in the dungeon, watching for when he started to wake up. When he did, Chuck went in to talk to him. "Hi, I'm Chuck, how are you feeling?"

"You drugged me!"

"Yeah, I did, and just in time, too." He brought up the video that the van's cameras had taken as they drive away, stopping it when it showed the agents that Sarah had spotted. "I presume you know who _they_ are?" Laszlo spat out. "CIA Fucks!"

Chuck nodded "Yeah, that was as we were leaving, did you hear our driver saying 'Fuck!'?" Laszlo nodded. "That was why."

"Are you telling me that you _aren't_ CIA?"

"No, well my wife is still technically CIA but we don't work for them, and we don't like them either, especially Director Graham."

"Don't give me that! That bitch who seduced me to get me into that corner for you was definitely an agent!"

Chuck's pleasant expression slipped. "Don't call her a bitch! She's my best friend! And no, even though Anna's had agent training she's _not_ an agent. In fact I'd do my best to avoid her if I were you as she doesn't swing that way so what she had to do with you was quite unpleasant for her, and she can very easily kick your arse if you say or do the slightest thing to upset her."

Laszlo was totally confused by now, all the more so because he actually believed what this guy was telling him. "So what happens now?"

"We need to get you away from here as quick as we can, because as you saw the CIA _are_ looking for you. We've got a plane ready to take you to Nevada where our people can get you out of sight for a while." He hesitated here, as what he said next could go really badly.

"Laszlo, we want to put you in therapy with our psychiatrist, you were put through a lot of shit over the last sixteen years and…."

Laszlo cut him off. "You can stop beating around the bush, I get it... I'm not so fucked up that I don't _know_ that I'm fucked up..."

It was his turn to hesitate then. "But how do I know that this _is_ therapy and not just the agency brainwashing me into going back to work though?"

Chuck shook his head. "Shit! You and my Dad are going to get on like a house on fire!…. Look, there's nothing I can do or say to prove this to you Laszlo, but we have someone else there working with Doctor Dreyfus to deal with his own problems, my father. You should be able to work out who Dad was when you meet him. Hopefully that will help you trust us a little more."

"OK, presuming that this is what you say it is and it works, what happens after that? Can you help keep me away from the CIA?"

"Yes, I believe that we can, the first thing we need to do is change your name, as both Laszlo and Mahnovski are too distinctive, too easy to search on. We came up with Leslie Mahoney as the closest name phonetically that isn't likely to be linked to your original name." Laszlo tried 'Leslie Mahoney' on the tongue a few times and nodded, he thought he could get used to that.

Chuck nodded. "Good! We'll use that from now on then, because the more you use it the faster you'll get used to it. As for after…. I wasn't planning on going into this until you're ready, but my father was actually your predecessor at the CIA, creating most of the technology that the CIA, or Graham at least, wanted. He did something stupid and desperate over seventeen years ago and he's been having therapy to try to deal with it since then…. He's off with the pixies all too often but when he's there he still has the brain that made him what he was and he's been coming up with the equipment that the group that I work with needs for the last fourteen years or so when he's able to work. What we were planning to do was offer you a choice when you and Doctor Dreyfus think that you're ready. You can either go into the witness protection scheme and _hope_ that the CIA or anyone else doesn't find you and put you to work again, or you can work with my Dad, under our protection. I can promise you that it would be different from what you had to do for the CIA because you will _always_ have the right to refuse to work on anything you don't agree with. I __can__ guarantee that because I'm actually in charge of that group, I work with Dad sometimes and manage everything."

Laszlo no, Leslie, nodded thoughtfully. "Okay, I guess I'll have time to talk to your father about this while we're there, but working with you on interesting projects and being able to say no to things I don't want to work on certainly sounds better than dying of boredom somewhere out in Bumfuck Idaho."

Chuck grinned at that and nodded. He dropped some clothes on the chair and pointed out the bathroom, saying. "Why don't you go have a shower and freshen up before we head for the airport."

Once again, he hesitated before continuing. "I know that you could probably get into our systems if you wanted to with what's in here, but if you do, _don't_ fuck with them! We rely on these systems to protect our family and interfering with that protection will wipe out any goodwill you may have with us. Also, don't try to screw with the agent who's going with you, she's my wife's sister, and you'll find that we're very protective of the people we love. You don't want to find out how far we'll go to protect the people we love, trust me on that!"

Leslie just nodded without saying a word, as this was the second time he'd seen that look in Chuck's eye and he had no doubt that he meant every word he said _and_ that he was quite capable of following through on the implied threat.

Half an hour later, there were teary goodbyes as Carina headed off to Los Alamitos with Leslie, they knew that she'd be at the wedding in a month or two and the girls would be seeing her before then at dress fittings, but it hadn't been that long since she came back into Sarah's life and she might be up at Red Mountain with Dr Dreyfus for a while if she needed more help to get her head straightened out after what she'd been made to do for the DEA for so long. Carina would be staying at Red Mountain with Leslie, Leo Dreyfus and Chuck's father up until the wedding, and they'd make a call then about whether she and Dr Dreyfus thought that staying longer would help with her own issues. Obviously they wanted her to come home after the wedding, but John was the first one to say that she should stay with Doctor Dreyfus as long as it took to help her with her problems.

They played Graham along for another week, telling him that they'd had no sightings of the target, then Di started asking how much longer the CIA was planning on tying her team up with this manhunt of his, reminding him that the longer he kept her people locked into this, the more it was costing him. He swore under his breath, because he'd forgotten about that in his panic to recover or shut up Mahnovski, and asked what the charges were so far.

Di made a show of looking up the figure, because Sarah had told them that he didn't appear to have their memory (While she didn't have Mary, Emma and their kids' eidetic memory, Di's retention was still a sight better than most's.), so they were hiding that advantage from him for as long as they could…. She told him that the figure stood at Five Hundred and Twenty Thousand at the moment, reminding him that that would be going up by another Sixty Thousand per day, plus expenses. He muttered something and told her to discontinue the search for Laszlo Mahnovski immediately and present the bill. Diane smiled and said that he'd have the invoice in his inbox within the hour, cutting the link.


	13. Presenting the Newlyweds

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, this isn't the real world and it's not a Disney Princess tale.**

The day of the wedding dawned clear and sunny, which was a great relief to everyone, as this meant that it could be an outdoor wedding as planned and that let Vera's vision of a winter wonderland wedding come about. The last of the participants and guests had arrived from Los Angeles the previous day, and they'd been mingling with their guests at the wedding venue for a while before the wedding. John's mother had actually been staying in DC with Di for the week leading up to the wedding, because she needed to be close enough to New York for the fittings for the dress that was being made for her for the wedding. The two women spent quite a bit of time talking about their children and John's father, because like Emma's father, Alexander Coburn Snr had died a hero in Vietnam, being awarded a Silver Star and promotion to Major in the Marines posthumously in 1970, when Johnny was two.

They spent some time discussing that it was Johnny, the youngest of their three sons, who'd chosen to follow in Alex's footsteps and joined the Marines. Johnny's two brothers hadn't been told that Johnny was alive and getting married, because they'd just shrugged off his supposed death at the start of Eighty Nine and had tried to stop their mother taking Kathleen in when she was kicked out by her 'good Christian family' because they found out that she had gotten pregnant outside marriage. Johanna was disgusted when her sons tried to tell her that Kathleen was a tart who slept around so much that there was no way of knowing who the father of her baby was, just to try and stop her leaving any of her money to Johnny's daughter. Johanna knew that her sons were lying, because Kathleen was a good girl who'd only slept with Johnny after they'd agreed their wedding date in six months, and she delightedly agreed when Kathleen asked if she could name Johnny's daughter after him. She was also happy to look after her granddaughter so that Kathleen could go back to work in order to make a new life for herself and her daughter and told her that Johnny wouldn't want her to be alone out of some misplaced loyalty to him when a nice young man from her work became interested in her, someone who had a good enough heart to be quite willing to take in another man's child and love her as if she were his own, and who hadn't turned a hair when he discovered that she was actually living with the father of her child's mother.

Kathleen married George with Johanna's blessing and they were happy together, the only hitch was when Johnny turned up... alive... a year after they got married. Johanna had hit and screamed at Johnny a lot more than Kathleen had, but eventually she accepted what Kathleen had, that it was Johnny's overblown sense of duty that had made him accept what he was being told when that man said that it was his duty to make this sacrifice and that Kathleen would not be hurt by it, as in time she would move on and have a good life. The biggest shock for Di in these talks was the fact that Johanna had actually met Carina, she had had dinner with the two of them in Paris one of the times Johnny flew her over to Europe for a week... She'd always dreamed of seeing all the romantic cities of Europe but raising three boys on a widows pension almost guaranteed that it would never be anything _but_ that... a dream. Johanna was in tears as she told Di about the joy she got from spending a week with her baby boy at least two or three times a year after she was sure that she'd lost him forever, and how special he made it by flying her to all the places she thought she'd only ever get to see on the television for their weeks together... She laughed when she added that he'd started taking her to other fabulous places once she'd seen the places in Europe she'd been dreaming of. They _both_ laughed about the fact that John still bitched that Carina had only started calling him Johnny because he'd gotten so embarrassed about his Mama calling him that in front of her.

* * *

There were a few eye openers with the number of three and four star Generals and Admirals present at the wedding, and more than a few _other_ notable figures as well, not just the President of the United States and the one most people were sure would succeed him, they also had the Secretary for Defense, Secretary of State, the Army, Navy and Air Force, the DNI and the Directors of the FBI and NSA there, but the biggest shock for those who recognised them was the presence of the CIA's Director of the National Clandestine Services, Jane Bentley, and Deputy Director Pam Landry, because the nature of this group's normal relations with the CIA was hardly a secret. There were also questions being asked about the senior foreign military and intelligence figures present, given the level of secrecy that prevailed over the event, but no-one who knew about them was saying anything.

They were glad to see that Stephen appeared to be well grounded, as did Leslie because he and Leo Dreyfus had come with Carina and Stephen. Leo was having a laugh with Di about the fact that it appeared to be the talking to that _Carina_ gave the two of them about what she'd do to them if either of them did anything to ruin this day for Sarah, Ellie or her that had dragged them far enough into the real world to have them behaving appropriately for a while.

Emma had a nice conversation with Jane while they were waiting for the brides to arrive. Sarah had told her how much Jane had helped her when she was her handler, and that she had become her mentor after that so that she'd still be there for her, so Emma was grateful to Jane for looking after her little girl. She was also happy that Sarah was wearing her grandfather's Medal of Honor lapel pin as her 'something old' object, because it made her feel like he was there with them for this special event... the fact that her groom was wearing his _own_ Medal of Honor ribbon just reinforced how special it was.

When the ceremony started, those who hadn't known about it beforehand were making quite a few comments about the fact that it was actually a _triple_ wedding, and that one of the 'best men' was in fact a _woman_ (especially after everything they'd been forced to agree to to _avoid_ any spectacles), but they were pointedly told to shut up by those who knew the brides and grooms. The fact that most of the people who actually knew them appeared to be rather dangerous types had the effect of silencing any comments very quickly.

The only glitch during the actual ceremony was the fact that Chuck had to be prompted to respond as he was looking at his bride in a happy daze. A sharp elbow in the ribs from his 'best man' got him back on track though.

After the wedding kisses there was another surprise, in that there were three separate sword arches that were twice the usual size from the Army, Navy and Marines, though were a few Air Force officers in each of them too, and the men making up the sword arches were all in dress whites as well. Any questions about that were merely answered with the fact that the brides and grooms had operated with all four services and therefore it was deemed only fair that they should all be represented.

* * *

There were more outraged comments when the wedding pictures were being taken (that was another restriction of this wedding, _no_ pictures would be taken other than the official ones, and the guests had actually been searched and had their phones etc taken from them) about these people wearing rank insignia and medals that they couldn't have possibly earned, because Sarah, Ellie and the other girls had donned their faux uniform jackets for some of the pictures so that their ranks and medal ribbons were displayed and Mary, Emma, Phoebe, Stephen and most of their core group were there in dress whites (Including Mei-Ling, who'd returned to LA after a few weeks of depositions in DC as Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Maylene Li, one of the identities they'd created in the military system for the Spectre group in the early Nineties and maintained to allow them to slot people into operations as needed.), but these people were told quite forcibly to shut up and read their name tags. Reading 'Mowgli', 'Raksha', 'Rikki', 'Baloo', 'Bagheera', 'Akela', 'Mysa', 'Daruka', 'Won-Tolla' and 'Karait' shut most of them up. 'Shanti', 'Matkah', 'Hathi', 'Ikki', 'Ferao', 'Darzee', 'Chil', 'Ko', 'Kaa', 'Leela', 'Pappu', 'Mang' and 'Mor' didn't mean as much to them, but they'd gotten the message and accepted that this group had earned their ranks and medals, and more besides with what they had done.

The ones who _didn't_ understand what those names meant were taken aside and had it explained to them in very clear and simple terms just what would happen to them if they _ever_ spoke a word about this to anyone. It was pointed out that the President and just about everyone important in the Military and Intelligence communities were there (with more than a few from friendly powers as well), so there was no chance that they would have been allowed to display those ranks and medals if they _hadn't_ earned them. They also pointed out that the SOCOM Commander was a SEAL himself, so he would _never_ have let anyone who hadn't earned the right to do so wear a SEAL trident, but he obviously didn't have a problem with those in the wedding party wearing them, in fact he'd looked proud to see them wearing their's. (Chuck, Ellie, Sarah and Anna were all wearing miniature SEAL and Naval Aviator badges because Sarah and the girls had gotten their opportunity to go through the SEAL testing and had come through with flying colours. They'd actually had most of the senior SEAL officers in attendance to see whether Mowgli and Raksha's little sister, Mowgli's daughters, partner and best friend and Mysa, Matkah, Baloo and Bagheera's daughters could live up to their reputation and they'd declared that they had all done so quite well, much to the detriment of the 'regular' SEAL prospects' reputations.)

* * *

The reception was inside the plantation house (because while they wanted Vera's winter wonderland for the wedding itself, it was too cold and there was too much chance of the weather turning to have the reception outside), so the newlyweds led everyone inside once all the pictures were finished. That took a while though, because as well as the wedding party and their families, they had to have pictures taken with many of the dignitaries there. They had to thank Roan again when they got inside, as the setting was utterly beautiful. There was a quite a bit of laughter when the first woman that Chuck danced with after the three brides was in fact his 'best man', but next after her were the three maids of honour, then the rest of the brides' maids, his new mother-in-law, his mother, the President's daughters, Ellie and Carina's new mother-in-laws, Auntie Di, 'Aunt Jane', Auntie Charly, Lou's mother and most of the women working for Cinders Security after that. He hardly got to sit down throughout the reception.

The little tidbit coming out that two of the lovely young ladies in the wedding party were actually the young Admiral Carmichael's _daughters_ caused quite a stir at the reception, and more than a few speculative looks at Sarah. She answered those who actually asked the question with a delighted laugh. "No, Charlotte and Charlene aren't my daughters, though I couldn't be prouder if they were. The girls' grandfather dragged the family off to another country just after their mother became pregnant with them so they were born outside of the United States. By then Charles was serving in the Navy and their mother had no way of finding him. She brought the girls back to the States in Two Thousand but it wasn't until after he completed his active service that she managed to track him down and let him know he was a father."

That explanation usually resulted in another question to be answered. "No, the fact that Charles was with me when she found him again hasn't generated any bad blood between them, or us. You see they were never a couple like that, she was one of his best friends and the girls were born as result of loving experimentation between close friends when they were young. They are still best friends and I have been fortunate enough to have become a close friend to her and her partner as well."

When people asked why the Admiral's daughters were enthusiastically hugging and kissing those two young Israel men who'd been in the wedding party and the women with them Sarah laughed again. "They're the girls' uncles and aunts. They haven't gotten to see much of them since they moved to the States with their mother and grandmother so they're excited to see them, you see their uncles and aunts have trouble getting clearance to travel overseas because they're still in government service. The only one who's out of the girls' lives is their grandfather, because he tried to impose his will on the whole family against their wishes and refuses to accept his daughter's right to make her own choices for herself and her daughters."

* * *

One thing that they'd grudgingly had to concede was that they couldn't afford to be off-line long enough to have a proper honeymoon, so Roan had pulled out all stops to get the structural work done on the other end of the building building, get it re-clad with mirrored armour glass and complete the penthouse and roof garden in time for the wedding. Utilising the existing frameworks for the roof perimeter armour glass saved them enough time to get it done on schedule. One thing that Chuck and Ellie didn't know (they knew that they were up to something, but thought it was just something to do with the wedding) was that Roan had talked to Sarah and Rick soon after Ellie and Rick decided to get married, to get their thoughts on a proposed change to the design of the penthouse.

The original design of the penthouse had been an 'L' shape, with the entertainment areas right across the end of the building and a residential wing up one side with the bedrooms, a private kitchen and lounge and the like. What he was proposing now though was a 'U' shape with _two_ residential wings, one for the Carmichaels and one for the Nobles. They all knew how close Ellie and Chuck were, even when Chuck was up at Stanford, they'd always started the day off talking to each other, they _also_ knew how much Chuck hated him getting anything that Ellie didn't when she deserved just as much, so when Ellie and Rick announced that they were getting married too, Roan hastily re-sketched the penthouse design to include a private wing for each couple and shared formal entertainment areas and asked Sarah and Rick what they thought of the idea. Rick and Roan looked at Sarah, because she was the one who would be sharing her penthouse here, but she shook her head at them. "Are you kidding? Chuck and Ellie will _love_ this, and so do I! Do it Uncle Roan!"

Roan beamed at her, as that was exactly the answer he'd expected from Emma's daughter, and told her that they were also making some changes to their new covers to elevate Ellie's visibility and importance to help explain this, so they'd be letting it get out that Ellie and Chuck were in fact orphaned siblings and she'd come west with him. The offices for Ellie's business, Noble House Consulting, which would be publicly marketed as an industry think tank, were also being made much more prominent in El Castillo.

He also explained that the apartments beneath the two residential wings would be hooked up to the private elevators to the keep and fixed up for John, Carina, Alexandra and Zondra on the Carmichael side and Rocky, Zoe, Benjie and Phoebe on the Noble side.

* * *

They decided to have some fun, put on a show and make a statement when they left the reception, and they did that by each couple jumping into a Lakota as they made touch and gos right outside the ballroom where the reception was held, with each Lakota being escorted by a pair of Little Birds, and all nine helicopters in full stealth mode. After they watched the black helicopters disappear quietly into the night, the top brass turned on the SOCOM Commander, demanding to know why they hadn't been made aware that they had such effective stealth technology at their disposal. At first he was angry as he said that they _didn't_ , but his expression cleared and he laughed as he realised what had been done here. "We don't... but who has always been the ahead of the rest of us in tactical aircraft and equipment?"

At that, most of them turned to the diminutive Air Force General standing nearby in her full dress whites, because she commanded the people he was referring to, and the smile she gave them didn't bode well for someone. "No, you don't, because those stealth helicopters are in fact privately owned by the defense contractor that developed them, working with the Spectre group..."

Diane gave another evil smile as she waved to a side room and asked. "Would you like to hear _why_ you _don't_ have that stealth technology at your disposal gentlemen?" Only about half of the men who wanted to be in on that discussion managed to get into the room to hear it.

Roan joined them on the J70 that was taking them back to Red Mountain, one of the Little Birds had picked him up before they put on the show outside the reception because he was going to be introducing them to their new homes and then leaving them to have as much of a honeymoon as they could manage. He was just thankful that the cockpits of the Russian jets had been made big enough for additional crew, because he rode back to Red Mountain in the cockpit to give the newlyweds some privacy.

At Red Mountain, they accepted congratulations from everyone who hadn't made it to the weddings and then transferred to Rocky for the last leg down to Arcadia.

* * *

When they got there though, they hovered above El Castillo for about 5-10 minutes as they tried to take in the changes. Chuck caught the confused look on Sarah's face (because she'd been expecting the Keep to be at one end of the roof, but she had no idea what that was down the other end), and a quick look over his shoulder showed that Ellie and the others looked just as confused, but Uncle Roan was looking quite pleased with himself. He caught Ellie's eye, but she just shrugged and turned back to the window to try and take in at what Uncle Roan had created for them.

Both ends of the roof had been covered over with mirror glass now, which would make flying around Arcadia on a sunny day interesting, but they weren't on the flight path for either runway at Bob Hope and there weren't any public heliports in the area, so that shouldn't create too much of a problem. These roofs were close to the height where rooftop helipads became a mandatory requirement, but Chuck had made sure that El Castillo came in under that line when it was rebuilt and the new additions hadn't added to the height. As he was bringing Rocky in to land, Chuck called over his shoulder. "This can't all be for us, so it doesn't look like you guys will be living downstairs after all."

The look on Sarah's face was saying that there was more to this than he thought, but he put that aside and concentrated on landing Rocky where Uncle Roan indicated. When they touched down on the roof though, he saw that the mirror glass roof was twice the depth of the building underneath, though with the night vision goggles he was flying with, he couldn't be sure _what_ the building at the end Uncle Roan had directed him to land at was. Uncle Roan called out "Run it in underneath the roof please Charles.", so he engaged the electric motors in the wheels and did as he was told, turning it around to face outwards before shutting Rocky down as Roan opened the door and stepped out. Sarah, Ellie and Rick waited for Chuck to finish so that they'd all experience this together, but they were watching through the windscreen as about two thirds of the mirror wall at the other end was retracted to the sides, because Roan had brought up the lights outside.

Uncle Roan was looking (justifiably, they had to admit) proud of his creation, and as they exited Rocky and began to look around, he launched into his tour guide role. The first thing they noted as they exited was that the 'building' at this end was actually a large glass walled _pool_.

"As you can see, this end is your main indoor, outdoor entertainment area. I call it the Crystal Palace because it's all made out of your father's armour glass, in fact everything up here is. The pool is a little over a hundred and seventy feet long, almost fifty feet wide and nine feet deep, ten if you fill it right to the rim. There is a twenty four and a half foot wide glass deck going around three sides of the pool and as you can see, the pool itself is glass sided so that people in the pool can interact with those outside. You have bars built in under the stairs leading up to the pool deck on both sides to cater for your parties and all the change rooms along the outside walls have shower and toilet facilities, they can also be used for overnight stays if your guests party a little too hard, or want a little privacy…."

"You've already seen one reason to roof over the first seventy four feet with two way mirror glass, to be able to get your helicopters and tilt rotors out of sight of anyone flying over, though you'll only have a foot or two clearance for the Ospreys, so I suggest that you make sure you shut them down _before_ you run them underneath, and they'll only fit under with the rotors horizontal. But you can also use the area under here for parties without worrying about the weather. For those who want to sun bake, you can still do that under here, but it will take a little longer because the glass screens out some of the UV rays. An added benefit is that the ladies can get an all over tan on the pool deck if they wish without having to worry about being ogled or photographed by anyone flying over or using telescopic lenses from other buildings."

He turned to wave out over the open expanse of synthetic grass. "As you would have noted on the way in, the covered area at the other end is the same size as this, so the open air section of El Castillo Jardines… El Castillo Gardens…. is about five hundred and ninety by two hundred and twenty feet, which makes up about two thirds of El Castillo's roof area."

"All of the 'outside' areas of El Castillo Jardines, including the area under the pool deck, are covered in your father's delightful synthetic turf..." He nodded to Chuck and Ellie at this.

"We've all come to appreciate its softness over the last ten years, and it's certainly proven itself durable on the flight decks of our ships and the tarmac areas of Red Mountain and Emerald City Those little cottages you can see over there are where the lifts that come up from the public areas of the building, and the Gardenia and Rhododendron bushes and trees are all hooked up the the automatic watering systems, which can also deliver fertiliser if they begin to look a little tired. So, are you ready to see your new homes?..."

"Oh I am sorry Charles, Eleanora, you see we've been keeping something from you…. When Eleanora and Richard decided to get married as well I asked Sarah and Richard whether they'd mind the four of you sharing the Keep, and whether they thought that the two of you would mind. They were all for the idea and they shared my view that you would be as well, so we decided to keep it as a surprise for you… So that is the Carmichael wing on that side…." He pointed to the roughly forty by one hundred foot two storey building that went along one side of the roof. "And that is the _Noble_ wing over there….." as he pointed to the matching building going up the other side. "The formal entertainment wing that goes right across the end of El Castillo will be shared between you."

He glanced at John and Carina and back with a smile. "I may as well tell you now that the Coburn family have the apartment below you Charles, and the Johnson family have the apartment below the Nobles, they're each connected to the private elevator on their side to make access to the Keep easier."

He paused to soak up the excitement radiating off them. "So, once again, are you ready to see your new homes?"

They agreed excitedly and strolled off through El Castillo Jardines hand in hand, stopping to admire the fairy lights that had been threaded through the Gardenia and Rhododendron bushes and trees along the way. Before they entered the building, they also stopped to check out the second indoor/outdoor entertainment area, the large spa pool built against the wall of the entertainment wing, which was flanked with more of the mirror glass changing rooms like the ones down the other end, along with tables and chairs and another bar.

What they'd seen so far _was_ decadent, but it was delightfully stylish and elegant and they loved it! The mirror glass walls of the Keep, changing rooms and bars and mirror stairs made a nice contrast to the synthetic grass and Gardenia and Rhododendron bushes and trees, and the transparent glass perimeter walls (looking out, anyway) made it feel rather open, but they had been that way before. Being able to look through the pool to the outside world was rather interesting too.

They started the tour inside with the formal lounge, because that was where they entered, this was a quite large, elegant room with a ceiling over twenty foot high and smart glass walls, and they noted that all of the furniture used lockable rollers to allow it to be rearranged or moved out of the way quickly and easily for functions. Next came the formal kitchen along the inside wall, which was set up like a restaurant kitchen and clearly capable of catering for large functions, with the formal dining area which could handle a large number of people in front of it. These were a couple of steps up from lounge level, which Roan explained was largely for effect, and to separate the dining area from the lounge area. Beyond the dining area and kitchens, the floor level went down again for the ladies and gentlemen's toilets along the inside wall (to serve the guests at functions), and the rather large games and cinema room that went from the dining area to the corner on the outside, and there was another, quieter and more private lounge area filling the space between the cinema room and the wall that closed off the private wing on that side, there was also another informal lounge level above the toilets and private lounge. The public elevators at that end both opened into the 'courtyard' where the private wings met entertainment wing, which meant that anyone coming up that way needed to be let in. Looking back through the entertainment wing they all agreed that yes…. this would be _quite_ enough to handle any functions that they may want to have here.

Roan demonstrated the concealable multi-factor authentication mechanisms for access into the private wing, explaining that the same controls were used in all the lifts and of course everyone's access to each level and area would be controlled individually. As he did so he explained that the walls and roof for the Keep had all been constructed of the multi layered armour glass that Chuck had specified for the entire ground floor to be upgraded to after testing confirmed that none of the weapons that they expected to face would be able to breach it. The active security mechanisms he'd specified were also in place and as they had seen, the courtyard between the two wings could also be closed off by a single layer of armour glass with overlapping joints from inside for an additional layer of security.

As he led them into the private wing, he explained that _this_ was the Carmichael residential wing, but the Noble wing was much the same. The Carmichael wing started with a couple of light and airy bedrooms with spacious en-suites and walk in wardrobes, then came an informal kitchen/dining room that could be opened up to the airy private lounge filling the rest of the space to the internal armour glass wall. Roan told them that the entire living area was wired for full video conferencing facilities, for those breakfast and dinner operations meetings that they were wont to have. The rest of the ground floor of the private wing was made up of by a bedroom obviously designed for the twins with two beds, a proper bathroom and a large walk in wardrobe that opened into the master bedroom beside it, the master bedroom with a large bathroom and walk in wardrobe/dressing room, and the large full width armour glass walled gym/work room coming off them that looked out over the roof garden and had its own ensuite and kitchenette.

Upstairs there were another eight bedrooms and a spacious glass walled private lounge area with separate bathroom facilities going right across the end, and the private elevator that went down through the entire nine levels of El Castillo (including the bathrooms of their executive offices on the ground and first floors) opened onto the wide walkway between the bedrooms on that level, and the lounge area downstairs. Looking around their private wing, Chuck and Sarah decided that they'd be spending most of their time in here and would be very comfortable. That massive 8' by 10' ultrabed and the jacuzzi bath and shower which could easily hold four people in their bathroom raised a few questions that they weren't sure that they wanted to ask though, for fear of what the answers may be. Ellie and Rick were thinking the same thing.

Chuck thought that it was ridiculous to have twelve bedrooms for them and the girls, until he caught the approving and grateful look Sarah shot Uncle Roan, so he demanded to know what she had planned. She looked chagrined at being caught out, for all of about ten seconds, then laid out her plan…. That the girls would be in the room next to them of course and Anna and Lou would have the other outside bedroom downstairs, while Auntie Rebecca, Josie, Mama and Uncle Bry and Kim would be in four of the upstairs bedrooms, and the upstairs lounge would be converted into another workroom/gym with an ensuite, as the bathroom had been set up so that a shower could be easily added…. Roan nodded at that last…. Chuck was a little miffed that they'd planned all of this without his input, but on the other hand he was happy that Sarah was comfortable enough with the way things were and knew him well enough to have set this up.

Roan showed them how to access everything in the combination workroom/gym, then led the way across to do a similar tour of the Noble wing (which, as Roan had said, was much the same) before he bid them adieu and headed downstairs to the apartment in the Dungeon he'd been living in for months, and probably would be for at least another month or two while he created his vision of the Carmichael Industries, Noble House and other offices on the ground floor, and the Spectre group offices on the first floor that Diane hadn't told them about yet…. He was rather looking forward to being a fly on the wall when she tried to explain why she'd gone ahead with her vision for the new direction of the Spectre group _without_ first discussing the details of that vision with most of the major players. The entertainment value of watching John trying to win a battle of wills with Alexandra would be nothing on watching the confrontation between Diane and Charles, Sarah and Eleanora when she tried to tell, rather than ask, them how it would be.

Before he headed downstairs though, Chuck and Sarah apologised for ever doubting him and thanked him, because this was magical, and Ellie and Rick agreed with the magical description and thanked him too.

As soon as Roan had left with John and Carina though, Ellie turned on her husband and said that Sarah had come clean, so now it was his turn. Rick was no more abashed than Sarah as he laid out that Viv would have one of the downstairs bedrooms and Auntie Mary, Auntie Charly and Uncle Hank, Katy, Jeff and Skip would have five of the upstairs bedrooms and their upstairs lounge area would also be converted to another workroom/gym.

Ellie caught Chuck's eye and they just nodded to each other, extremely happy with the idea of having the entire family right there, no more than fifty yards away to talk matters through, because this was how they'd been for the last seventeen years, living and working together. The time that Chuck, Anna and Jeff had been up in Palo Alto had been hard for them, especially Chuck and Ellie, so this was like a dream come true for them. If the arrangements had to change down the track, so be it, but this would work quite well for the space they were all in at the moment.

With that, they said good night and each couple headed off to their master bedrooms to try out those deliciously decadent beds in their master bedrooms.

* * *

It was no great surprise that they didn't manage to avoid working on their so called honeymoon. Chuck and Ellie tried to get as much of the work as possible done while Sarah and Rick were sleeping, but they still had to have video-conferences at least with the others during the day as well, so when Ellie told Sarah that Chuck would need to talk to Uncle Hank about the Stealth Helicopter Project before the meetings that Auntie Di was probably already organising with the military, Sarah went to Chuck and told to get Hank down for that talk.

Hank flew Ricky down from Red Mountain that night, because he'd flown their helicopters and tilt rotors into El Castillo with night vision goggles more than a few times since they came up with the first of the stealth rotors about two years ago, but he had much the same reaction to the mirror glass covering both ends of the roof now, and when they brought the lights up once he'd shut Ricky down and taken the night vision goggles off, he just stared about, not believing what he was seeing. It was smaller than it had been of course, but El Castillo's rooftop had been _huge_ , so that wasn't an issue. The way it was now though... with that mirror glass mansion taking up one end and that other structure…. was it a _pool?_ taking up the other end, and the rooftop having been turned into a beautiful _park_ , it was amazing!

He was still looking around in stunned amazement when they all strolled down to greet him and Chuck said "Welcome to El Castillo Jardines!" with a laugh.

Hank shook his head and looked at Ellie. " _This_ is what you were talking about when you telling me that you were worried about what Roan was building for Chuck's new home?"

Ellie nodded with a smile.

"I guess you aren't too upset with Roan after all then?"

She shook her head with a laugh. "Not in the least! And you haven't seen inside yet!"

Turning to point at the Carmichael Wing, she went on. "That's Chuck and Sarah's home over there, but _that_..." turning to point at the Noble Wing "Is Rick and mine! What our spouses didn't tell us was that Uncle Roan asked them if they'd be happy if all of us were sharing the Keep just after Rick and I decided to get married, and he's been building this ever since!"

Hank pointed to the Noble Wing. "But if that's _your_ home, and that's _Chuck's_ home…." (pointing to the Carmichael Wing) "What's all the rest?" as he pointed in the direction of the spa pool.

Ellie laughed again. "Oh that's just our shared entertainment wing!"

Hank shook his head as he decided that his head was going to explode if they kept talking about this, so he turned to Chuck. "Chuck, Ellie told me that you need to talk to me about the Stealth Helicopter Project before the General brings the military to Red Mountain for those meetings she's setting up?"

Chuck nodded. "Yeah, let's just get Ricky under cover and we can go in." At that, Ellie quickly ducked into the cockpit to drive Ricky under cover, turning it around to park it beside Rocky (because Ricky _was_ her personal transport, just as Rocky was Chuck's). It looked like they'd broken Hank again so Ellie laughed and took him by the arm to lead him towards the Keep when she hopped back out of Ricky, but he stopped and pointed back at the pool. "What _is_ that?"

Ellie laughed again. "Uncle Roan calls it the Crystal Palace because it's all made out of glass, it's our pool and main outside entertainment area Uncle Hank. I have to admit, it _is_ pretty incredible, you have to see it in the daylight, and have a swim in it as well while you're at it."

Hank just shook his head and let himself be led towards the mansion, not noticing that Rick had grabbed his bag from Ricky as he was closing the door.

Chuck led the way to his and Sarah's workroom, and brought up the figures and information he wanted to talk about on the screens of the workstation he'd been using, but Hank had been distracted by all the certificates, medals, pictures and _flags_ on display above the screens which they had left visible when it was just them there, so he spent a while answering questions about them first. Hank had been with them for over sixteen years and knew about many of the missions they'd been on, but due to the decision to keep nearly everything to do with their identifies on a strictly need to know basis, he'd never seen most of this before.

Sarah had come in with them, because she wanted to hear what this was about too, and she was both amused and touched when Hank wandered from looking at Chuck's achievements onto her's and suddenly checked himself with an apology when he realised. "Oh I'm sorry Ma'am, I shouldn't have looked at your displays without asking!"

She shook her head. "Feel free Mister Higgins, I know you'll keep whatever you see to yourself, and it's Sarah to family, which from what Chuck and Ellie tell me, you _are_!"

"Thank you Sarah, and it's _Hank_ to the family!"

Now that he'd been given leave to look, he did so with interest, and his eyes widened as he realised that Chuck, or rather Mowgli in this context, had found himself a good match in this little lady. He didn't hold to the notion that the Distinguished Intelligence Cross was at the same level as the Medal of Honor, but he _was_ quite prepared to accept it as the equivalent of the Distinguished Service Cross or Navy Cross, and he was willing to bet just about everything he had that she was just about the only woman to get one, and she had an Intelligence Star as well, so she'd certainly seen serious action and distinguished herself there. He _was_ prepared to accept that the criteria for the Medal of Valor was equivalent to the Medal of Honor's though, and he saw that both she and Chuck had _them_ , from around the time she joined them actually. For that matter, he knew some of the men who'd certified her on aircraft and signed off on her special operations training, and you had to be damned good to get _them_ to sign you off, especially a woman! Considering that she couldn't have seen as much action as Mowgli (he was damned sure that _no-one_ had seen as much action as him in the last ten years at least, with all the missions the General sent him on), what Sarah, no, Shanti here, had earned was damned impressive.

Sarah was surprised to find that the approval of this man who both Ellie and Chuck obviously cared about and held in high regard actually meant quite a bit to her, and he read her thanks in the smile she gave him. He gave her a 'you'll do!' nod, and then went back to what Chuck had wanted to talk to him about.

* * *

What it came down to was that SOCOM and most of the Special Operations groups were bound to be wanting their stealth helicopters now that they'd seen them in action, but the question was, did they want to restrict themselves to the Little Birds and Lakotas, or did they want to offer the solutions they'd come up with for the Hueys, Kiowas, Jolly Green Giants, Chinooks, Pave Lows and Ospreys, and maybe the EC135s, A109s, Fennecs, Cougars, Merlins and Hooks as well?

"I know the main reason you converted the other helicopters was that you guys were quite rightly pissed off at those idiots on the panel Uncle Hank, but the thing is they _all_ work quite well. So I was thinking, why don't we offer them the choice of a wider range of helicopters? I'm planning to tell them that after the spurious rejection of every one of the thirty seven separate submissions of viable stealth helicopter technology that we have made to the panel overseeing the Army Helicopter Improvement Program, it has been made quite clear to us that they will never accept any stealth helicopter solutions developed by Emerald City. Therefore we have decided to cut our losses at the Three Hundred and Fifty odd Million Dollars and thirteen years of effort we have invested to date into developing Stealth Helicopter technology for the United States Military, and have instead turned our efforts to developing stealth helicopter solutions for the United States' trusted allies, in the hope that we will be able to receive fair and unbiased consideration from them. I'll be adding that we're only meeting with them on this occasion at the specific request of General Beckman of the Air Force, because she was the representative of the United States Military who engaged us for this project in Ninety Four. We've got the people and facilities at Red Mountain to let us set up production lines for the different types of helicopters and this should both make us a lot of money and stick it to those Army bastards who tried to screw us over…. I'm also thinking of picking up damaged helicopters cheap to fix up, recertify and convert, and offering them as an alternative to converting existing helicopters. It would be more cost effective than throwing away major components from nearly new helicopters, and if we can get the donor helicopters cheap enough we should make quite a bit more from them than we would by converting existing helicopters…."

He could see Hank running the technical aspects of what he was proposing through his head, while Sarah and Ellie were running the numbers and considering the other angles he was proposing, and they were all nodding. When they tentatively agreed that this appeared to be both technically viable and very good money sense, Chuck brought up the numbers he wanted to propose in the upcoming meetings with the military.

After another hour and a half's discussion, they were in agreement with how they wanted to proceed, but Hank and the girls were also in agreement that _Chuck_ would be the one who filled in Auntie Di on this new angle, seeing as it was all his idea. Chuck pouted about that, which of course just made the girls laugh at him.

* * *

Sarah threw her arms around him and kissed the frown away, and she kept her arm around him as she turned to Hank. "How _are_ our helicopters so quiet Uncle Hank? They're much quieter than any other copters I've been around."

Hank smiled, because he loved to talk technical details as much as Chuck did, and he appreciated the way she was making it clear that she'd accepted him as part of the family…. _Her_ family. "I presume that Chuck's already filled you in on the background, but I've been working with our people up in Red Mountain on and off for nearly fourteen years now on a project to reduce the acoustic signature of United States military helicopters, primarily focussing on the Little Birds as they're most often in the situations where stealth matters. Part of the noise reduction comes from using an asymmetric Fenestron tail rotor…. That's the shrouded fan in the tail…. to replace the exposed tail rotor, because that gets rid of most of the tail rotor noise, but even more work has been done on reducing the acoustic signature of the main rotor."

"We built a stronger and improved titanium version of the Little Bird's transmissions with better bearings to reduce drag that was more than strong enough to handle the full power of the hot and high Five Thirty F's more powerful turbine to drive the main rotor and tail rotor shaft. We used the Fenestron tail rotor to cut down the tail rotor noise, and built a skinnier, lightweight carbon fibre tail boom for it, but we shaped the boom like a vertical airfoil going against the direction of rotation to reduce the main rotor's torquing effect a little and save a bit more power, we replaced a number of panels and components with improved carbon fibre and titanium versions at the same time to make it stronger and drop more weight. It did a better job and all up it saved three or four hundred pounds and around thirty horsepower so the Little Bird was a little faster and a lot more nimble with better range as well as being quieter."

"Then we came up with a shorter seven blade rotor with thinner composite rotor blades and asymmetric spacing early last year. The stealth rotor reduced the acoustic signature quite a lot, but we found that it _also_ impacted the performance quite a bit, so we modified the FADEC system to allow the turbine's full power to be used. The tail rotor drive and transmission we created for it had also freed up a bit more power to go to the main rotor and with those changes the Little Bird could more than match its original performance in full stealth mode, but you lost range due to having to use extra power to counter the reduced lift of the rotor blades."

"As a work around for that problem, we redesigned the stealth rotor and Fenestron hubs so that the rotor blade spacing could be quickly changed between symmetrical and asymmetrical in the field. That way that it could be in symmetric mode for better performance on the transport leg, and then be switched to asymmetric mode to quieten it for the final approach, but it still lost range and performance because of the reduced lift from the thinner main rotor blades. With thicker rotor blades, we found that the stealth rotor can actually _improve_ the performance and range in symmetric mode, but they make the acoustic signature bigger in asymmetric mode so the stealth aspect suffers."

"When they added the ability to change between symmetrical to asymmetrical in the field, they also worked in the capability to quickly fold the blades right back for storage. An ex Navy men on the team brought that up first in regard to shipboard storage, but someone else pointed out that it could be even more useful for allowing the helicopters to be airlifted into forward support positions and then rapidly deployed, as one C Seventeen could fly in an entire strike team, complete with up to half a dozen Little Birds, and they could be on their way within half an hour or so of the plane touching down. Being able to fit it all into one load would also mean that they could get the C Seventeen in and out of a forward airstrip without having to rebuild it. Unfortunately we couldn't let anyone else know that we had something far better than the C Seventeens for that because we need to keep our P Seventies a secret, but the idea was a stroke of genius and the rest of us were wondering why the hell we'd never thought of it before, so we made damned sure that we had it working by the time the revisions to the stealth rotor hub were done."

"Once we'd proven the concept, we confirmed it by repeating the exercise with our other Little Birds, upgrading them to the higher rated turbines from the Five Thirty Fs as well to get the extra power we needed for them to get acceptable performance in full stealth mode. The Army panel overseeing the Army Helicopter Improvement Program questioned the sanity of most of our core ideas... reconfiguring the rotor blades in the field, modifying the FADEC to use the turbine's full power, using an unproven transmission in a Little Bird _and_ fitting a higher rated turbine into the Little Bird, even though we just bolted in compatible higher rated Two Fifty turbines from another Five Hundred variant, so our proposal to use all of them _together_ just about gave them apoplexy. They were determined to stick with the normal Little Bird variants anyway, so they rejected the improved transmission, Fenestron boom and tail, reconfigurable rotor and bigger turbine proposals out of hand. The only piece of the project that they approved to continue was the original fixed seven blade asymmetric rotor, but with the thicker rotor blades. While they officially rejected most of our proposals though, we had fully functional stealth helicopters that performed quite well!"

"The reason we have the Lakotas is that the Army selected the EC One Forty Five for its new Light Utility Helicopter soon after that. We knew that Eurocopter were already using a Fenestron tail rotor on their slightly smaller but similar One Thirty Five, and they were working on an updated Fenestron tail rotor variant of the One Forty Five as well. Chuck and Roan went to France and talked Eurocopter into selling them a couple of the new One Forty Five Fenestron tails and the uprated turbines and FADEC and glass cockpits they were using, picking up a couple of beaten up early One Forty Fives cheap while they were over there because they got them for less than a quarter of what they would have cost us here. We compared the existing open tail rotor parts to the Fenestron tail rotor parts, confirming that they were a straight swap, as were the turbines and FADEC."

"We thought that having the uprated turbines and FADEC and Fenestron tail rotor being manufacturer parts would have been enough to get past their arguments against using _unproven_ parts, so we fitted the uprated turbines and FADEC and glass cockpit and built stealth rotors for the the One Forty Fives they picked up, along with a shorter and lighter Fenestron tail with less aerodynamic and mechanical drag to go with it, and they exceeded all the targets they'd set for stealth helicopters. We were confident that stealth One Forty Fives using mostly factory parts would be enough to prove to them that we could turn their new Light Utility Helicopters into fully functional stealth helicopters that could carry almost as much inside as a Black Hawk…. But the old fools on the panel just refused to look at them, so we just added the Lakotas to our helicopter fleet... Though from what I heard about the discussions the General had after the show we put on at your wedding, the stealth Lakotas and Little Birds should be getting a showing now."

"Our Lakotas are a lot lighter now because we've built much stronger improved titanium transmissions and carbon fibre tail booms like the Loach and Little Birds' for them and replaced a lot more parts with titanium and carbon fibre since then. And as Chuck said, we did the same with the rest of the helicopters, just to prove that we could, and replaced more of the standard parts on the Lakotas and Little Birds to improve their performance and range, because we didn't need to comply with those old fools' stupid rules any more if they weren't going to be accepted. We have all the equipment at Red Mountain to build whatever we need, all we need is time and materials and when the Army rejected our proposals we had plenty of time to improve them, and the rest of our helicopters as well. As you've seen, we've also built up our version of the Ospreys along the lines of Ricky and Rocky, as well as one which has retained more of the standard parts like Roxy that we keep around to shut up people who ask about them. If they want Stealth Ospreys that's what they'll be getting, though I can't wait to see the US Military's reaction to the fact that their improved Ospreys will be relying on engines from the Ukraine…."

Sarah laughed with him at that, she could see why Chuck liked and respected _Uncle_ Hank, because he was down to earth and smart, and almost as fanatical about their toys as Chuck was.

* * *

When they'd sorted out the major issues, they repaired to the Nobles' lounge while Ellie whipped them up something to eat. It hadn't taken them long to come to love the setup for the living areas, because the wall between the kitchen/dining room and lounge area could be folded back to allow the people in the kitchen to be part of the discussions in the lounge room.

Hank did ask why he hadn't been told about Chuck and Ellie's flag ranks before the wedding and Chuck apologised, but explained that it was all that need to know crap that went with their positions in the intelligence and military communities. They'd wanted to tell him but they hadn't been allowed… He stopped and grinned "Until I slipped up and _forgot_ to blank the displays in the workroom."

That told Hank that this visit had intentionally been used as an excuse to fill him in on that, because he knew that both Chuck and Ellie had eidetic memories, they'd had to let him in on that in the early days to explain how they could see something once and know it, so he gave Chuck a fond and grateful smile.

Ellie had waited for that moment to call out. "Rick, now that the cat's out of the bag, can you take Uncle Hank down and show him _my_ wall please? Chuck and I have been wanting to tell you about most of this for years Uncle Hank, but we weren't allowed until Chuck _slipped up_ and let the cat out of the bag."

When Rick led Hank off to their workroom, Ellie came out to wrap her arms around Chuck's neck and kiss him, because they _had_ felt bad about keeping all that from the man who'd been a beloved Uncle to them since Ellie was just in her teens, and Chuck was nine.

Hank looked wide eyed at Ellie when he came back, but he just nodded respectfully and the rest of the night was devoted to fond memories and laughter. Rick had missed out on hearing about many of their funnier adventures as well, so he was learning almost as much as Sarah about the events of the first ten years. He was more surprised than Sarah when Ellie insisted that she was going along when they went to Eilat for a helicopter shopping trip, because Sarah knew that Eilat was a popular tourist destination in the Middle East and quite lovely but he hadn't been privy to that knowledge and the only times he'd been through there was when they were slipping through on a mission at night.

When they started winding down, Hank said that he needed to go get his bag so he could head down to the Dungeon and get some rest but Ellie shook her head. "No you don't, Rick brought your bag in before Uncle Hank, you're in that room behind you."

Hank knew from experience that this delightful young lady was the only one he'd ever met who could be even more stubborn than the General, so he just thanked her, said his good nights and headed off to bed.

* * *

When he got up in the morning, Hank went down to have a look at this Crystal Palace. It certainly was impressive, a two hundred odd foot long glass structure that was mainly using mirror glass for the horizontal and clear glass for the vertical surfaces. He sat down at one of the (glass) tables underneath the deck to enjoy the peaceful atmosphere, and Ellie and Rick came to say good morning before they went up to dive into the pool. Watching them doing laps and playing about in the pool, and Ellie stopping to wave with a grin when she passed him, he could certainly see the appeal of this design, and what a stunning sight Ellie was in a bikini too.

Yes, he'd have to say that Roan's Crystal Palace was certainly a success, in fact everything he'd done up here was amazing… he turned back to look across the garden to the Keep… that had seemed strange at first until they reminded him that it was on top of _El Castillo_ , the castle…. and the effect looking that way was similar because all the walls at that end were mirror glass too. The Keep didn't go higher than the perimeter glass walls though, so El Castillo didn't look any different from the outside. On the inside though… he shook his head, on the inside it was an estate fit for the fabulously wealthy, while remaining comfortable for the people who lived here, it was an incredible job.

While it was nice, being there with them, he knew that they were trying to make the most of what pitiful excuse for a honeymoon the General had allowed them to have, and he had work to do to prepare what Chuck wanted to present when the military came to Red Mountain, so when Ellie and Rick got out of the pool he went back up to the Keep with them, to say goodbye to them all and head down to get a lift back to the airport.


	14. Out With The Old, In With the New

**There have been a few more changes to make this sit better with my mental image of this world, but most of them probably won't even register with most people. The most notable are likely to be the fact that the defense contractor for Red Mountain is now Emerald City, and Red Mountain is _called_ Red Mountain. There's also a solar farm and solar research facility in Israel that was the cover for a secret Cold War B-52 staging and resupply base that they took over in Ninety Two that's called Emerald City. And their LA hangars are now in the ****Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Center (their operating out of a busy commercial airport never made any sense but I couldn't identify a better alternative until a few days ago) and are owned** ** **by another one of their defense contractors,** Emerald Air. Oh, and El Castillo is in Arcadia rather than Pasadena now as that works better with Los Alamitos and the girls' school.  
**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale.**

Chuck, Hank and the others had meetings with Special Operations and Intelligence groups from the United States and their trusted allies about Emerald City's Stealth Helicopter solutions a couple of weeks after the wedding, and as Chuck expected, they had commitments to order a range of Stealth Helicopters from Little Bird size up to Chinook size, plus Stealth Ospreys, from just about all of the people who attended. It was a done deal that they'd be getting orders from these groups, the only unknown was how long it would take them to get the budget approvals to proceed, so they began organising what they'd need to produce the parts for the conversions.

The first things Chuck did was to place priority orders for the specialised Multi-Million dollar fabrication equipment they'd need for the large scale precision fabrication of the titanium and carbon fibre components. At the very least they'd need a couple of hundred sets of the components to do the stealth conversions, but he knew that it would be more than that all up and the terms of the contracts included very harsh penalty clauses if all Stealth Helicopters ordered weren't completed within six months of the original agreement, so they needed to be able to guarantee that they could get all the components fabricated in that time frame. The Eighty odd Million that he invested into the additional plant and equipment may work out to more than the penalties would have been (perhaps not though, which was why he'd stuck it to the Army with the alternative incentive program he got rammed down their throats, he was essentially betting somewhere between Two Hundred to Three Hundred Million Dollars that they'd get every Stealth Helicopter completed before the deadline), but this way they had the equipment to fabricate just about anything needed, which would be of use to them down the track.

He also made arrangements with the manufacturers of the turbines used in the helicopters they were converting. The deal he made with them was that he would be making progress payments as turbines were delivered, but he expected to be getting bulk prices based on the size of the orders that would accumulate over the six months that the project would run, so they'd settle up at the end of the six months on that basis. Some manufacturers just agreed because they were sure that they wouldn't lose on the deal, but half of them were intrigued by his proposal.

As Chuck had said, getting the 145s they used for the trial as cheap as they did had prompted him to look into doing this on a much larger scale, and as 'The Diplomat' (This came out of the Russian Mobster on the rise persona he'd created for the mission where they took down the military auction in Ninety Six and he had made enough of a splash as Dimitri Volkovich that they'd decided that it was worth maintaining the persona for interactions with people in that world. The name had come from the fact that people who questioned why he wasn't picked up with everyone else after one big bust were told that he had diplomatic immunity because he was effectively operating under a Letter of Marque from the leaders of the his country. The kicker was that that was effectively true because he had insisted on having formal documentation authorising him to do this before he'd do anything when Auntie Di first told him to do it on an operation in Ninety Two, and that documentation had been formally, if unofficially, ratified when each new President came into office.), he called on his contacts around the Middle East to locate and buy up whatever inoperable helicopters they could find from the list he gave them, so long as they had sound airframes and were really cheap, as soon as the special ops and intelligence groups confirmed that they'd be ordering stealth helicopters. He also gave them another list of helicopters to look out for that could have damaged airframes so long as they had the latest avionics, if they could be had really cheap. No-one asked why, as they'd heard stories about what happened to people who crossed the Diplomat, they just presumed that he had a really big order to supply helicopters to someone and had a source for cheap turbines for them, so the helicopters would probably be fixed, cleaned up and passed off to his client in quick order.

As he'd expected, there were plenty of these helicopters laying about the Middle East, because being flush with oil money tended to make them rather careless with their toys so there were hundreds of helicopters that had just been discarded and left where they were when they failed. Hell, there were hundreds of helicopters operating and that was only a fraction of what had been discarded. They probably could have just picked them up (and he was sure that they did in many cases, but he required paperwork to show that they'd all been legitimately purchased so they usually took the easy way out and paid the owners a token price to salve their egos and get the paperwork they needed). As soon as his contacts let him know that they'd managed to scrape together enough structurally sound but inoperable helicopters to make up a full plane load for Albert, Chuck flew to Al-Sawda to pick them up. Several more plane loads of helicopters in a similar state over the next six months pretty much cleaned out all of the listed helicopter hulks that could be found in the region. Chuck's spotters were still looking for more like them, but by then they'd picked up every sound and slightly damaged airframe they could get cheap so they didn't expect to be able to find any more than one or two a month after that. They got those helicopters dirt cheap (around Sixty Four Million plus over a Million in fuel costs etc all up to get about two hundred helicopters with sound airframes and another two hundred that were damaged but probably repairable), because most of them had had their turbines, transmissions and other major components destroyed by flying them in sand storms and their owners had no use for them, but the airframes were all they really wanted. Chuck took the two hundred damaged airframes to make up full loads for the planes and get updated avionics for the converted helicopters cheap, so any of the damaged airframes that could be repaired and used for the conversions would be a bonus.

The ones Chuck bought the helicopters through had shipped them to Eilat via circuitous routes, and they were given the impression that they were being on-shipped somewhere else in the world from there on the Diplomat's ships. That was the ultimate plan for the majority of the helicopter hulls, but the first leg only went as far as Al-Sawda in the Arabian Sea so that they could be stripped down and readied for shipping. The times they brought Albert, the Guppy or the Mini Guppies over, they just ran them straight into the hangars there and loaded the helicopters and parts into the plane under cover. If they had one of the ships passing through that part of the world, they'd fill up containers with whatever they had on hand and ship them back to the States by sea. Their people from the Emerald City Facility at Eilat made sure that there was no trail left of what happened to the containers after they arrived in Eilat.

* * *

They'd had Lou's brothers running Emerald City at Eilat ever since they were released from their core military service requirements for the Talpiot program, so they had the security of having trusted family members running the facility for them, and through them Emerald City had been accepted as an approved IDF and government contractor in Israel as well as the US. Their father running roughshod over Lou and constantly abusing her for bringing shame on the family had been bad enough, but the final straw was when he falsified that marriage to his friend's son because they loved their little sister and nieces and there was no way that they'd _ever_ allow them to be mistreated by a pig like that, so their father was dead to them when they learned about that. Ben and David had also been friends with Ellie in Arcadia, and to a lesser degree Chuck, Anna and Michael as well, because they had been their only intellectual peers at school. They weren't as close as Lou was to them of course, but they had still missed their friends when they were dragged off to another country against their will like that, so they were happy to be reunited with them, and the fact that they were family now just made it better.

Ben was supposed to be tied into his military service requirements for another couple of years after Lou and the girls went to America, and David would have been locked in for another three years after that, but when Chuck came back over with their mother a couple of days after she went to the States with Lou and the girls they were happy to agree to take over the Emerald City Facility at Eilat. Their mother stayed on in Eilat to oversee the creation of the new Emerald City Research Facility and returned to the States after their weddings four months later when they and their new wives moved to Eilat to take up residence. Their new wives Hanna and Rachel had also been in the Talpiot program and would be working with them at Emerald City, so the Emerald City Research Facility made a big splash when it was announced in February, all the more so when it was revealed that their mother and sister would be working at another Emerald City Research Facility located in the United States.

People in the government had known that this was coming, because the people behind Emerald City had been working hard to get the proof of Luca Palone's dishonest dealings accepted by the government so that Lou and her daughters, and Rebecca as well, would be released to return to the United States. Ever since the proof had been accepted, the government had been bending over backwards to try and ensure that the wronged members of the Palone family would see them as doing everything they could to right the wrongs that had been done to them. They'd had to accept the American government's prior claim to Louisa Palone and that she and her daughters were returning to the United States so that her daughters could grow up knowing their father, and they had no cause to hold Rebecca Palone in Israel, so they couldn't block her returning to the country of her birth with her daughter and granddaughters. They did have a way to hold Ben and David Palone and their fiancés in Israel, but luckily wiser heads prevailed so the path that they followed was to release Ben and David and their fiancés early from the military service requirements of the Talpiot program and agree to change Ben and David's names from Palone to Rabi when they did this for Rebecca, Lou, Charlotte and Charlene. They also convinced the Rabbinical Court that Rebecca had an irrefutable justification to be granted a divorce, then leant hard on Luca Palone to make him give Rebecca a get and sell everything so that she could be given the seventy percent of the family worth that the courts awarded her immediately. Their logic was that they'd already lost one eminent Israeli scientist in Rebecca Rabi and and an extremely promising member of the Talpiot program, so they were working hard to try and avoid losing another _four_ extremely promising Talpiot program members when they had completed their commitments to Israel that were part of the Talpiot program. By the time Ben, David, Hanna and Rachel moved to Eilat to work in the Emerald City Facility, Emerald City had already been awarded a number of significant contracts, with the promise of more down the track, so the future of Emerald City in Israel was looking quite rosy.

Those who weren't privy to what those in the government fighting to keep their links to the six Rabis were though started asking a lot of questions about what was going on in the Palone family which had become so prominent in Israeli scientific circles over the last five or six years. Luca David Palone had been regarded as an eminent orthodox Jewish figure and businessman (even if he did try to affect a more Jewish image by using his middle name most of the time), but Rebecca was even more renowned and valued as a scientist, and all three of their children being accepted into the elite Talpiot program was unprecedented, so for the government to suddenly release Louisa Palone from her military service requirements and allow her and her daughters to leave Israel when she wasn't even halfway through, Rebecca Palone to be granted a divorce, change her name and move back to the United States with her daughter and granddaughters and their two sons to refuse to speak to or about their father made everyone look at Luca Palone and ask what he had done to cause this. Anyone who knew about Luca and his hidebound ultra-orthodox views knew that this _had_ to be related to the fact that their daughter Louisa had been a teenage unwed mother, but the people who were upset about Israel losing Rebecca and Louisa Palone and quite possibly losing a four more promising members of the Talpiot program in Benjamin and David and their wives to be as well because of Luca Palone's actions told quite an interesting story...

This story told of how Luca Palone had demonstrated that born again Jews can be just as fanatical as born again Christians when he rejected his Roman Catholic background and embraced the most radical of the ultra-orthodox beliefs he was being taught by his bitter Jewish maternal grandfather when he was in his twenties... How he had arbitrarily moved the entire family to Israel without allowing even his wife any say in the matter and forced her to leave her position as a respected professor at Caltech in Los Angeles without notice. And how he'd torn his children away from everyone they knew and cared about overnight because he discovered that his teenage daughter had made a minor indiscretion and become pregnant to her best friend, whom she cared a great deal about. Then there was the story of how he and his ultra-orthodox hard liner friends had actually _fabricated_ a case against his wife and children in order to misuse government resources and have strict travel and communications restrictions imposed on them, just to prevent them contacting anyone they'd known back in the United States, which they all naturally and quite justifiably resented and even worse, how he and his ultra-orthodox friends had falsified _marriage_ records for Louisa to one of his friends' sons to try and stop her leaving Israel with her daughters. The falsified marriage records were the last straw for most devout jews, because these things were held sacred in Judaism.

These stories generated quite a bit of concern in Israel once they were verified, because important people who hadn't been part of the proceedings could now see that Israel had little hope of ever enticing Rebecca or Louisa Rabi as they were now known to return, and it was likely to lose another four of its best minds if Benjamin and David Rabi and Benjamin and David's wives to be decided to follow Rebecca and Louisa back to the USA. After that, Ben and David and their new wives were also released from their military service requirements early and Emerald City was made a formally approved IDF and government contractor by the second quarter of Two Thousand and One. Ben, David and their wives were still required to get official approval before they were allowed to travel outside of Israel as they were still bound by the agreements they'd made when they were accepted into the Talpiot program, but the government was bending over backwards to correct the injustices done to them in an effort to entice them to stay in Israel, rather than leave as soon as they were able.

They had no intention of telling anyone of course as all this was making life a lot easier for them, but Ben and David had no great desire to return to America and Hanna and Rachel were Israeli born and bred so they had no wish to leave. Their primary wish had been to get Luca Palone out of their lives and have more access to see Rebecca, Lou and the girls and they had that, and Emerald City had hit the ground running as a prominent government contractor with a number of significant contracts already awarded to it, so life was good. (For them at least, Luca was having a much harder time of it since he'd been forced to divorce Rebecca as he'd had to sell much of what he owned and give Rebecca Seventy Percent of everything, and on top of that his business interests had taken a dive and he'd lost just about all of his friends except for the few hard liners who agreed that he'd had every right to do what he had done to control his family.)

* * *

With everyone pitching in, it didn't take more than a day to finish stripping down the helicopters, mount them on the frames that had been made for the purpose in Red Mountain and load them into Albert. Turbines, transmissions and other heavy items were wrapped up and secured on the floor inside the helicopter bodies to keep the weight low. They fitted smaller helicopter airframes in between the rows of larger airframes so that most of the cargo hold was packed.

While the cargo bay was full though, they weren't carrying more than about three quarters of Albert's payload, so the flight home was easy….. Dealing with Auntie Di when they got home was a different matter altogether though, because she went ballistic when Chuck suddenly disappeared and flew off to Israel in with half of the team to dismantle the helicopters and haul them back to the States, and she'd been stewing over it ever since she found out that they were gone.

When she finally stopped to draw breath, Chuck managed to point out that, aside from any extra stealth helicopters they might want for their own group, they stood to make at least Two to Twelve Million profit off each of these helicopters they brought in when they were converted and sold, more if they could get the uprated turbines and such they needed cheap. She'd looked at him calculatingly and asked how many he was planning to keep for their group, obviously running the potential numbers through her head.

"None from of this plane load as we need to fill the existing orders first, we'll take some out of the ones that are coming. I doubt that we'll have any trouble selling however many we get, and this load alone should net us somewhere between a Hundred and forty and Two Hundred and Fifty Million clear."

She grudgingly conceded that this was a good plan and let the matter drop after another dig about the fact that he should have cleared it with her before he took himself and their crew out of the country.

* * *

It was easy to add most of the parts for the rest of the stealth helicopters to what they creating for the military, because the SOCOM commander and others had seen the value in their improved transmissions and the like so they overrode the original panel's rulings on that, and they'd had to set up production lines to be able to build enough parts to convert over a hundred helicopters into stealth helicopters for the United States Military alone. It only took the special operations groups and Department of Justice a couple of months to get the budgets approved and sign the contracts to start getting the helicopters converted, but that was enough time to get the extra equipment and set up the production lines they needed to cover the workload. They'd already started converting the first of the ones they picked up by the time the first of the contracts were signed.

As each plane load of dead helicopters came in, Chuck added more uprated turbines to the applicable orders with the turbine manufacturers because the Army was taking _all_ the turbines and transmissions removed from the helicopters in the initial conversion run no questions asked and covering the turbine upgrade costs..… This was because the Army brass were just rubber stamping everything to avoid another reaming like the one they got from everyone over the way their people overseeing the project had refused to allow even a proper demonstration of the stealth helicopters' capabilities, and then trying to impose harsh penalties if _all_ of the stealth helicopter conversions weren't completed and delivered before a set deadline. The fact that the heads of all four services (along with the Secretary of Defense and the Secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force) actually saw the capabilities of these stealth helicopters with their own eyes before the ones who were supposedly overseeing the project for the military did had been rather embarrassing for the Army, to say the least, so when Chuck pointed out that penalty clause and proposed an incentive plan if they _did_ complete and deliver every Stealth Helicopter before the deadline, the Army was forced to agree to what Chuck proposed.

All the turbines, transmissions and such that they'd pulled out of the four hundred and fifty odd helicopters used for stealth conversions as at the end of the Stealth Helicopter Conversion contract were shipped off to the Army as part of the deal to cover upgrade costs. They _were_ using the Army more than a little there but Chuck was still pissed off about those jumped up idiots on the Army oversight panel's refusal to give any real consideration to what they submitted (after they'd invested most of the Three Hundred and Fifty odd Million and thirteen years of effort that went into Emerald City in the property, plant and equipment needed to set up and run the stealth project _for_ them and fabricate the components for the Stealth Helicopters) and trying to impose that penalty on them, so he decided that a little pay back was in order while he had them over a barrel. A Hundred Million or so wouldn't break the Army, they wasted more than that every month by refusing to get their house in order. Due to the fact that the orders added up to nearly eight hundred uprated turbines, they'd gotten the uprated turbines pretty much at cost, but the incentive plan that the Army had been forced to agree to was that they paid the price differential between the _list_ price of the new uprated turbines and the valuations for the old, tired turbines which were pulled out of every one of the helicopters being converted as part of the Stealth Conversion Project. This worked out to around Hundred and Fifty Thousand per turbine, to be offset by the residual value of the turbines and transmissions pulled out of the helicopters. The Army had tried to be clever too, as the existing Army helicopters that were being used in the stealth conversion program had been selected _because_ they needed expensive turbine and transmission overhauls after operating in Iraq, and they'd also taken advantage of the offer to buy converted Stealth Helicopters from Emerald City for fifteen of the Stealth Helicopters they were getting, but they didn't realise how much they were losing in the deal.

They were delivering the Stealth Helicopters as they were completed and tested, and as Chuck expected this resulted in more orders when people saw what they were capable of. He told his spotters in the Middle East to keep looking for more airframes because as he said to Auntie Di, he was pretty sure they could sell as many as they could make, in time if not as part of the original contracts. In fact they already had more foreign orders waiting on government clearance to sell the stealth helicopters to them.

The production and testing process for the Stealth Helicopters was gruelling, especially when they had to start dipping into the the airframes that needed to be repaired and re-certified before they could be used, but luckily the majority of the repairable airframes only needed minor repairs and the engineers had created the specialised jigs and equipment to do this, so they didn't slow the process down too much. The last of the four hundred and fifty Stealth Helicopters were signed off as completed six months after they started work though, and it was agreed by all and sundry that the Stealth Helicopter Project had been a resounding success. The military, Department of Justice and their allies, and even the CIA were quite impressed with the Stealth Helicopters' performance and accepted that they'd gotten value for money, and Emerald City had made over One Point Eight Billion Dollars in profit from the operation.

By the end of the Stealth Helicopter Conversion contract, the team at Red Mountain had built over four hundred and fifty Stealth Helicopters, about a third for the United States Military and Intelligence Agencies and the rest for their trusted allies. They had completed over two and a half a day on average and that was quite an effort. Chuck had been thinking about this and decided that they deserved to be rewarded for achieving all that in six months.

* * *

When the last of the Stealth Helicopters were completed for the contract, Chuck gave everyone working on the project a week off to recover and told them that they ('they' being him) had decided to implement a profit sharing scheme for the Stealth Helicopter conversions. Hank and other eleven who made up the core team that had made the project a success would be getting a quarter of a percent of the profits each, and the others who'd helped fabricate the components and assemble and test the helicopters would each get one tenth that much... and of course that would apply to whatever profit they made off the Stealth Ospreys as well.

John and most of the family laughed at Chuck when he couldn't understand why everyone at Red Mountain was falling all over themselves trying to thank him. Carina eventually sat him down to explain the facts of life to him.

"Chuck, just how much money do you think most people make?"

Chuck started mentally reviewing the pay scales for the on the books personnel that made up their groups. Carina was no fool though, she knew what he was doing so she quickly cut him off.

"No. I said what _most_ people make Chuck! The majority of the personnel who make up these groups of your's are paid at least two to three times what most people make. For that matter your people at Red Mountain are paid more than most too."

She saw the surprise on his face as he processed that and internally breathed a sigh of relief, as it looked like she was getting through to him after all. But it was her turn to be surprised when he said. "I always thought that all that minimum wage bullshit Ellie, Auntie Em, Mom and I had to live with up until Ellie and I finished university was an exception and most people in America lived a lot better than that. The families of everyone we went to school with were all well off, we were the only poor kids at the school."

John laughed at that. "Come on genius, you must have known that you were set up in the one of the best established old money districts in LA to make sure that you and your sister got the best education, as the well established rich people always have the best schools and teachers. Of _course_ everyone you went to school in Acadia with was rich! How can you be so brilliant and so thick at the same time Chuck?"

Sarah cut him off. "That's because whether or not she planned it that way from the start, Auntie Di made sure that Chuck and Ellie never had a chance to fit in so that she could keep her geniuses on tap all the time to work for her Casey! You've been around Chuck for at least fifteen or sixteen years now haven't you?"

"More like eighteen."

She nodded. "And in that time, how often has he been able to go out and be an ordinary guy, have fun and get to know people?"

Casey's jaw dropped as he processed what she was saying and tried to think of a time when Chuck had had a chance to lead anything like an ordinary life. His expression turned grimmer by the minute as he kept coming up blank. There had always been piles of work to do or missions to rush off to, and the closest thing to fun he could remember Chuck having was when he was racing cars or bikes or flying. When they went to a bar or restaurant with the guys after a mission he'd usually just sit there pretending to enjoy himself because he couldn't really relate to the way the others were having fun. Chuck could charm and play just about anyone frighteningly easily, especially women, but that was always in terms of the mission, he couldn't think of a time he'd seen him having a genuinely relaxed, casual conversation or having fun with anyone other than Skip, Jeff, Anna, Lou or the family.

When she saw he'd gotten her point Sarah went on. "When Chuck was trying to explain to me why he fought Auntie Di to make sure he got the Sonics registered for Ellie and the others to use, he mentioned that both he and Ellie have been working eighteen to twenty hours a day for most of the last seventeen years or so... I'm guessing the memories you just went through confirmed that, didn't they?"

He nodded grimly.

"After Chuck casually dropped the bombshell on the plane about you guys spending around a Hundred and Ten Million getting the organisation started back in Ninety and Ninety One, I knew that there was more to this operation than I was being told so I looked into it. By his standards the Ten or Twelve Million he spent to set up Emerald City in Israel in Ninety Two was petty change, but you would have been around when he paid out another Hundred and Forty Million or so to acquire Red Mountain and get it set up in early Ninety Four... _When he was twelve!_ You were _also_ there when he paid out Four Hundred Million to that arms dealer to buy everything at that auction, then turned around and took that back, plus another Three Hundred and Fifty odd Million on top of it off Volkoff in late Ninety Six, just after he turned fifteen. And I dare say you know as well as I do what sort of budgets Captain and then _Admiral_ Carmichael has been managing to keep his special operations and intelligence groups going since Nine Eleven!... so why the hell would you be surprised that Chuck can't understand why the men and women he just gave several years' wages to as a part of the profit sharing scheme that _he_ thought up and implemented to try and do the right thing would be so grateful? He's _never_ had any frame of reference for ordinary people! You and Uncle Bry are probably the closest things to ordinary people he's known most of his life for god's sake and you're hardly ordinary _Colonel!_ "

Casey hung his head in shame as Sarah turned to Chuck. "Honey, what Carina was trying to make you understand is that it's only to be expected that most people are going to be both shocked and extremely grateful to be given Four Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars unexpectedly, let alone over Four and a Half _Million_ like Uncle Hank and the others got, because to most people that's an unbelievable fortune. It was the right thing, and a very good thing, to do for the people who made this work for the group, but you gave them one hell of a shock when you did it. Casually telling them that they can expect more yet if the Stealth Osprey project works out probably broke some of them. You have to remember that while you've been routinely dealing in tens or hundreds of millions as you organise these operations around the world and the concerns you've set up to pay for them over the last sixteen years or so, that's just something that most people can't understand..."

Chuck nodded thoughtfully, starting to get the point of what they were saying.

Most of the next half hour was taken up by the others trying to apologise for laughing at him, and asking about what Sarah said about the hours he and Ellie worked.

Later that night Sarah had her own apologies to make to Chuck, because that discussion had made a lot of earlier points fall into line for her too.

* * *

Chuck flew up to Red Mountain before dawn the next morning with Sarah to talk to Hank about the matter. Hank was delighted to hear the story of how Sarah had taken John down a peg or two, but he as aghast at what they shared about what Chuck and Ellie's lives had been like. It hit him all the harder because like John he realised that this had been going on right in front of him whenever he'd been working with those two and he'd never taken the time to see it.

They talked to the rest of the guys and everyone agreed to continue on a business as usual basis once they'd had a break. They still had plenty of work to do, fabricating the components for the two dozen Ospreys that they would be converting for the first batch, and maybe another two dozen after that if the Marines and Air Force got budget approval to go ahead. If they got the approval for more, this would most likely be repeated a few more times.

It hadn't been much of a surprise that the Navy, Marines and SOCOM wanted Stealth Ospreys after the modified Ospreys were displayed, because they eclipsed the standard Ospreys in terms of performance and range as well as being far quieter. The fact that new swivelling wing and removable nacelles and tail fins that they created for the Ospreys allowed them to be airlifted in C-5s or even C-17s (though a C-17 could only carry one), and that it took less than an hour to make them flight ready at the destination, meant that squadrons of Ospreys could be ready to deliver troops to the battle areas within an hour or two of the strategic airlift's arrival at the staging area. Very few of the commanders failed to see the value of that and they were pretty much demanding that their Ospreys be converted as soon as they saw the demonstration.

Hank and the team had worked out better ways to implement tilt rotor technology while they were getting the first XV-15 prototype working, and they'd just carried what they'd learned there over to the bigger Ospreys when they acquired the first four wrecks from the AMARC so no real development was required, just fabrication and assembly. They could have built the propfans at Red Mountain, but that would have taken a lot of their resources, and it didn't take much to convince Motor Sich to start gearing up to produce the propfans they wanted for the Ospreys. The initial order of fifty was enough for that, and hearing that the orders could well add up to hundreds of propfans (which was borne out by the fact that hundred and fifty were ordered in the first six months) meant that they made it a priority. Meanwhile, the team got to work building improved titanium transmissions for the Ospreys like they had for the helicopters, and the modified wings that they'd created for them. Once the Stealth Helicopter Conversion Project was completed, they switched the production lines over to fabricating the Stealth Osprey parts...

It was made clear to the Navy, Marines and SOCOM that, thanks to those penalty clauses the Army had had added into the contracts for the Stealth Helicopter Conversion project, work on the Stealth Ospreys would not begin until _after_ the Helicopter Conversion Project was completed, and while they weren't happy about the delay, they understood, it gave them time to organise the Five Hundred Million that had been agreed for the first batch of Stealth Ospreys anyway.

The Stealth Ospreys were looking likely to become a big operation, because the Air Force wanted all of the Ospreys they operated for SOCOM converted to gain to the airlift capability and increased performance and range (and reliability, as they found over time) that the modifications gave as much as the stealth capabilities. So did the Marines, but they eventually agreed to start with just a dozen each for special operations missions, as even that was going to cost Five Hundred Million all up.

Boeing wasn't happy that they were being made to supply new Ospreys without the parts that were fitted for the stealth upgrade, or that the components this defense contractor had created for the conversion were both patented _and_ officially classified as a national security matter, because that meant Boeing couldn't cut them out of the loop and use what they'd developed themselves. The fact that the Navy and Air Force used penalty clauses in the contracts to force them to transfer the agreed value of those omitted parts to the airframes just twisted the knife more.

Rolls Royce weren't happy either, because the Navy and Air Force had used the unreliability of their turbines to cancel their contracts, and made them come up with an agreed buy back plan for the faulty turbines they had supplied as they were being replaced.

Motor Sich on the other hand was _quite_ happy, because they were looking at selling hundreds of their propfans, which was a much needed shot in the arm for their factories.

By the end of the year, they'd converted three batches of two dozen Ospreys, netting another Eight Hundred odd Million in profit for Emerald City, which in turn meant Two Million more for Hank and the core team and another Two Hundred Thousand each for the rest of them. Most of them had sought advice on the best way to invest their money and were doing quite well. Only a few had chosen to take the money and leave Red Mountain (and none of them had been part of the core team), because Chuck and Ellie were good role models for not letting money go to your head. After what they'd gotten for their own small cut of the profits from just the Stealth Conversion projects, everyone at Red Mountain realised that Chuck and Ellie, who owned much of the group's resources and companies between them, had to be worth _Billions_ , but they had never let that effect how they dealt with anyone. So most of their people decided if those two could remain ordinary hard working folk as multi billionaires, they could do the same with their own meagre fortunes.

* * *

For all the hustle and bustle around Red Mountain and their clandestine trips to Israel and the Ukraine to get things moving there, the Human Intersect Team had a quiet period over the two or three months following their weddings, they were doing missions for the Spectre group and processing a lot of intel with the Intersect, but actual Intersect missions were few and far between, which let them consolidate Carmichael Industries and put more time into their Spectre work. It also gave Chuck and Sarah the opportunity to establish the Carmichaels as a well known couple in both the west and east coast society circles. There were several reasons for making sure that they were recognised at all of the 'in' places and events on both coasts.

Firstly, it allowed them to use their celebrity status to get them into events around the country without notice. Secondly, it meant that their arguments to keep Sarah away from anything she (all of them really) didn't want to do applied pretty much right across the country. And thirdly, it gave weight to the Carmichaels' back story.

The back story they'd created and established in all the relevant places for Charles Carmichael had him as heir apparent to an east coast old money family. He and his older half sister both had dual citizenship as they'd been born in England (they had both been citizens of the British Territories since Ninety One so it hadn't been difficult for the Piranha to move things around to show that they'd actually been born in Britain), but raised in the States as Chuck's father had been called back to take over the family's business interests when Charles was four. They were orphaned when both their parents were killed in a car crash, but their relatives just punted him off to military school and Ellie off to college after when parents died so they were all each other had left. From there Charles had gone into the Navy's ROTC program at MIT to become a Naval Aviator, following in his father's and big sister's footsteps, but he'd become a Navy SEAL before mustering out of the Navy when his active service was up. While he was serving, he did post graduate studies by distance learning at both Stanford (MBA) and Caltech (technical degrees).

His sister had been in the the Navy ROTC program too, coming down from Harvard to do her ROTC training at MIT. Her own father had disappeared when she was little, so Charles' father had been her Daddy for as long as she could remember and she'd wanted to follow in his footsteps as much as Charles did, but she'd transferred to Naval intelligence after serving a few tours as a carrier pilot.

Sarah Carmichael had a similar background to Ellie, in that her biological father had disappeared when she was young and her mother had found a far better man to replace him, but he came with a daughter from the woman who'd divorced him and got remarried while he was overseas serving their country. So like Ellie, she was in the ROTC program because she was following in her stepfather's footsteps, but her's was Army, not Navy. Charles had first met Sarah through ROTC at MIT when she was coming down from Harvard like Ellie did. They'd hit it off because they were both aviators, even if he was Navy and she was Army, and they'd been together on and off since then, getting married when they met again as he was nearing the end of his active service, they'd actually had a double wedding with his sister.

(Their wedding pictures had been photo-shopped into something they could display in the office, amending their ranks and medals to match their back stories. Jeff, John and Uncle Bry were the only ones who kept their real ranks and none of them kept all their real medals. Chuck worked being a SEAL into his back story to avoid insulting any SEALs who knew him who may see the pictures on display, they would understand why Ellie needed to keep it a secret.)

When he left the Navy, Charles used the majority of the money he'd received from his trust fund when he came of age to fund a major expansion of the company his father had started, Carmichael Industries ( as well as his sister's company, Noble House Consulting, because the Carmichael side of the family had all the money and the ones managing the Carmichael Family Trust wouldn't allow Carmichael money to be bequeathed to the illegitimate stepdaughter... no-one missed the fact that this aspect of the Carmichael family was obviously based on how the Beckman family had treated Emma when she was young), and that was why they were only now becoming prominent in business and Society circles.

This also provided the vehicle to show why the Carmichaels and Nobles always had security people with them for protection. They'd let it get around the security industry that Carmichael Industries had bought out Cinders Security's parent company, Quadling Security, to ensure that they would have security services on demand wherever Carmichael Industries operations or the Carmichaels or Nobles were, so while they still provided security for other clients, Carmichael Industries was now Quadling Security's biggest and highest priority client. It was also publicised that Emerald Air and Nonestic Shipping had been a part of Carmichael Industries since Nineteen Ninety, they had originally been created by his father to serve Carmichael Industries' transport needs but Charles had been steering and growing the businesses since before he started at university (which was true, and also showed that he was quite capable of successfully managing major business concerns).

They had incorporated as much truth as they could into their stories, as Charles Carmichael _had_ completed degrees at MIT, Stanford and Caltech, Ellie and Sarah had completed degrees at Harvard and Rick had completed his logistics degree at Penn State and MBA with the University of Pennsylvania. Ellie and Chuck were Naval Aviators, Sarah and Rick were Army Aviators, Chuck was a SEAL and Rick had been in the Army Rangers, so they just modified their ranks (Ellie and Chuck went down to Commander, Sarah went down to Army Major and Rick went down to a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army) and the dates in their 'public' records and worked in some of the medals that they had been awarded to justify them gaining the ranks they had a little quicker. They also mapped out a history to show how Rick and Ellie had actually met through Chuck when she was on carrier duty in the Gulf and they were serving in Iraq, but she'd transferred to Naval Intelligence after that. Ellie had fun adding the wrinkle that Charles had introduced Rick to her because Sarah was over there flying helicopters for the Army at the time and he wanted to get rid of potential competition for her affections because he thought that Rick was a great guy, Chuck played along with that but maintained that the _real_ reason was that he was sure that his big sister would like Rick as much as he did, which she did. They showed Sarah as starting out as an Army Aviator and serving a tour in the War in Iraq before moving into Army Intelligence and hence the DIA, Ellie and Chuck starting as Navy Aviators and then going to Navy Intelligence and SEALs, and Rick starting as an Army Aviator before going into the Rangers. Sarah was the only one who hadn't actually filled the roles that she was purported to before she joined the group but people would remember her from flight training and operations in the Middle East and it was easy to say that she couldn't talk about what she'd done, she could easily answer any questions anyway if pressed. The common threads of flying, special operations and intelligence, MBAs and the ROTC program (and missing fathers, because Rick's father was gone before he was born too) made it easy to explain why they all got on so well.

The validity of Alex's points about the believability of 'leggy model types' as receptionists in certain types of businesses had been accepted, but they'd created Carmichael Industries and Noble House Consulting as rather upmarket businesses, which made their executives having glamorous leggy model types as assistants rather more believable. So all of the girls except for Alex (who remained as her father's receptionist and assistant) became executive assistants in Carmichael Industries and Noble House. The shopping spree to get them all (including Alex, Maylene and Fi, who were the Carmichael and Noble House receptionists) suitably upmarket corporate wardrobes made a number of exclusive clothing boutiques on Rodeo Drive very happy, because they'd made three or four months' profit in one day. The wardrobe upgrades for Alex, Maylene and Alexis made them rather glamorous for receptionist roles (And Benji, who Phoebe had insisted on having as _her_ receptionist, just as much to piss off John as anything else because Benjie and Alex were a couple now, was rather dashing in his new suits.), but they spun it on the basis of the new owners wanting to have an upmarket professional image for all their businesses, Phoebe and John upgraded their work wardrobes for the same reason.

* * *

As with all the multi-layered alternate lives that Chuck had been creating for over sixteen years, these would hold up to just about any scrutiny, they could only get caught out if people from the specific areas their records showed they'd worked at were dragged in to refute that, and they had ways of talking around that as well.

This highlighted another problem though, because while they had over two dozen of the family working in their core Information Dominance group (including Viv, Lottie and Charlie), they only really had Chuck, Anna, Jeff and Skip working in their core cyber group. Lou had changed her focus to different technical areas in Israel, and the while the girls had skills, they'd never really taken to the cyber side of things, preferring to work with Ellie and Emma.

This came out when Sarah came to try and get Chuck to come back to bed one night, but he just pointed out that he still had piles of computer work that he needed to get through. While initially pissed off by this, she saw how he was stressed he was, so she sat down and made him explain what why he had so much work to do. What it came down to was that the demands on them for the high end computer work that they were doing had kept expanding like all their other work, but he hadn't been able to find anyone suitable to help them with the workload. While he was talking, his screen dropped into the screensaver and an animated piranha began swimming around the screen, which brought another discussion they'd had to mind for Sarah. "What about Pete Chuck?"

"What?"

"Pete Tong, the Mongol, he has the skills you need doesn't he?"

"Yeah, but I don't really know the guy, and have you forgotten that he's CIA?"

"Do you trust my judgement Chuck?"

"You know I do!"

"Maybe if I give you some background on my history with Pete this will be easier to understand... you see Aunt Jane introduced me to Pete about seven years ago when I needed serious help to get out of a mess that Graham had dumped me in to try and make me fail a significant mission. Pete found the messages Graham had sent to the ones he had setting this up which indicated that he was planning to use that to argue that I obviously needed closer supervision so that he could force me to do whatever he told me to, because the fact that even though I was still at Harvard, I was already the most successful agent in the CIA wasn't enough for him, he was determined to have me totally under his control. Pete got me out of that mess, and as I've said, he's helped me quite a lot since then. _I_ know Pete, and more to the point, I trust him, at the risk of being melodramatic, I trust him with my life Chuck. So, will you come and talk to him on my say so?"

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. "Of course!"

She grabbed her phone (neither of them went _anywhere_ without their phones, which was why Chuck made sure they were water and shockproof) and called Pete, setting up a dinner date with her and a friend the following night and asking him not to let anyone at work know about it. Pete had been in the game long enough to understand what she was saying and assured her that it would be just between them. Chuck noted the way that Pete was prepared to trust her enough to not ask any questions about her friend, and thought that that was a good sign.

* * *

He kept her in his lap as he sent a message to John, Carina, Zondra, Robin and Auntie Di to say that he and Sarah would be going to DC tomorrow, so presumably John and Zondra would have to come with them.

As expected, John, Carina and Zondra were knocking at the door within five minutes, and Robin wasn't far behind. They had access to get in, but it was partly being polite and partly self protection, because John _didn't_ want to walk in and catch them doing what he'd caught Ellie and Rick doing a couple of times. They were all part of the sleeping set, but came awake at the slightest sign of trouble, like getting a text in the middle of the night.

Of course, they wanted to know what was going on, but Chuck held up a finger with a smile, and sure enough the screen lit up with a very testy Auntie Di sporting a bad case of bed hair in under half a minute. Looking at the assembled group, she grumped. "All right Chuck, you've woken us all up, what's this about?"

Chuck went to answer her but Sarah stayed him with a hand on his arm. "It was my idea Auntie Di, Chuck is spending all night in here because he doesn't have enough people to cover the cyber workload. As his wife, I'm not at all happy about that, so I suggested that we interview a suitable candidate to help with that side of things and have set up a dinner meeting in DC tomorrow night to do so."

"Who is this person and why didn't you tell me that you were having trouble Chuck?"

The second question was answered by the look Chuck directed at the camera and she deflated. "Alright, you _did_ tell me that you didn't have enough people to keep up with the cyber workload and I promised to do what I could to reduce it…. but I couldn't…. but who's this person who just came out of the woodwork?…"

She suddenly realised the significance of the fact that it was _Sarah_ who had set this up. "Not CIA? You can't be serious?"

" _I_ was CIA Auntie Di, so was Uncle Bry, and Uncle Roan and Aunt Jane still _are_!" She matched her aunt's glare. "Not everyone in the CIA is as bad as Graham, even his own son is a good person!"

There was a snort from the door to the courtyard and Ellie said. "Thank you for that vote of confidence for my husband sis, but I thought we agreed to specify that he was only Ricky's _biological_ father?"

Her reply came from the screen. "You're not helping Eleanora!"

Ellie just shrugged at her as she pulled up a chair and sat down. "What's the problem?"

"Chuck and Sarah are talking about coming to DC to talk to a _CIA_ tech about joining the group!"

Ellie looked at Chuck. "Who?"

"The Mongol."

"Oh... he's good!"

Chuck nodded. "And Sarah's known him for seven years and she trusts him..." He looked up at the screen as he continued. "Which is good enough for _me_!"

Diane knew that look well, because for the last twenty five years or so it had signalled when her godson refused to budge on an issue, so she sighed. "Couldn't you have led with that?…. No... don't bother answering that! I know that I didn't really give you a chance to, but in my defence, I'm not at my best when people wake me up in the middle of the night telling me that they're going to do something crazy and dangerous. Can I at least get a real name for this Mongol person…. Please?"

"Peter Tong."

"She nodded. Chuck, could you send me through whatever information you have on him please? And as I presume that you'll be waiting until the afternoon to come in order to minimise your exposure in DC, why the hell couldn't this have waited until the morning?"

Ellie answered that. "Because you would have screamed the house down if you found out that we waited to tell you Auntie Di."

"I wouldn't ha…..."

"Oh do be quiet Diane! You know damned well that you would have! Good morning Charles, Sarah, Eleanora, John, Robin, Carina, Zondra."

* * *

There were a quick chorus of 'hello's and then he said. "Charles, while I have you on the line… Motor Sich have agreed to the same pricing model for the propfans as you have with the other turbine manufacturers so I'll be..."

Then they were forcibly reminded that Auntie Di was there. "You can talk to Chuck about your questionable business deals some other time Roan, at the moment we've got a serious problem here! Seeing as you're awake and have decided to join this conversation, what do you know about a CIA tech by the name of Peter Tong?"

"Mister Tong is one of the better technical people the CIA has, in fact he is quite possibly _the_ best they have... I've always found him to be exceedingly capable and have never had cause to be dissatisfied with his work..." He paused as he put two and two together and worked out what this was about. "If you steal _him_ away from the CIA Charles, you have to know that Graham will almost certainly go on a rampage!"

Chuck grinned at the screen. "Well the CIA's loss will be our gain Uncle Roan. We don't have him yet mind you but I'll definitely be doing my best to get him!"

Sarah laughed. "All you have to do is convince him that you're the Piranha and he'll follow you anywhere Chuck! I've told you how he hero worships the Piranha!"

John grunted then. "Well if we're going to DC tomorrow, I'm going to go and get some sleep!"

He looked at Chuck. " _You_ can explain to Ellie's mother in law why El Diablo Rojo, Il Martello di Dio, De Blonde Reus and I, plus two dozen of the Cinders team will be disappearing for most of a day on a few hours notice tomorrow!"

"We don't…."

" ** _No!_** We're not going into Graham's territory without a proper support team!"

Chuck just nodded, because John obviously wasn't going to shift on this and he had to accept the logic of his point. When John went to tell Carina, Zondra and Robin that they may as well go back to bed then, Carina was sound asleep, so he gently picked her up and carried her out, with Zondra getting the doors for them. Chuck shared a smile with Sarah and Ellie at that then looked up at the screen.

"Okay Auntie Di, the details on Pete will be there when you get up in the morning... Night."

There were a round of goodbyes and then they cut the link. Sarah looked at the blank screen musingly as Chuck put together the files on Pete and sent them to Auntie Di. "Chuck?"

She got a distracted "Yeah?" as he was working.

"Do you think that Pete could be like you, Ellie, Auntie Mary, Viv and the girls?"

"What do you mean?"

"I hadn't thought about the time when I called him, but Pete sounded wide awake and there was no delay as if he were waking up…. Auntie Di, Casey, Rob, Red and Zee though, as good as they are, took a few minutes to be really here and were having trouble staying awake once the initial panic was over... well Red _didn't_ manage to…. That just made me wonder whether Pete might be one of you who don't need sleep..."

"I don't know Sweetie, like I said I don't know him past some on-line conversations, but I certainly wouldn't complain if he was, as that'd really help with the workload."

She nodded, then kissed him before climbing out of his lap. "I can see from that look in Ellie's eye that she wants to discuss what this is about but unlike you two I _do_ need sleep, so I'm going to bed. _Please_ come to bed soon Honey!"

He stretched up to kiss her and she started to stumble off to bed, but stopped and turned back with a smile. "Skip should be happy if Pete joins us too."

That just got her a confused look. "Oh... didn't I mention that? Pete is really smart, very nice, rather cute and _quite_ gay!"

Chuck laughed at that. "No, you _didn't_ mention that Sweetie. Well if we can convince him to come across I hope they hit it off, it's about time Skip got a chance to be as happy as Ellie, Anna and I am."

That got him another kiss before she toddled off to bed with a smile.

* * *

Chuck quickly filled Ellie in on what Sarah was proposing, and why, then Ellie gave him a hug and sent him off to bed with his wife as she headed back over to her own workroom.

She stopped to think about what Sarah had said about Pete. It would be great to have someone else who didn't need much sleep to share the load with Chuck on the cyber side of things. Anna, Jeff and Skip worked hard, but the fact was Chuck put in more than twice the time anyone else did and probably did three times the work. He had a wife now, he needed a chance to lead something like a normal life!

Thinking about that, she closed the files she had open and went back to bed with her husband, because so did she!

Though mostly asleep by the time Chuck got to bed, Sarah snuggled into him contentedly when he joined her, and he was surprised to find that he slept through until the girls came to get them for their morning run, which Sarah joined them for now. So did Casey, Carina and Zondra most days, but they decided to let sleeping dogs lie that morning.

They had to wait until morning to call in reservations for the restaurant, and they went along with Zondra's suggestion that she come with them to meet Pete so it looked like a double date, and they'd have another gun right there in case the CIA followed him there, so they made the booking for four. John and a couple of the other guys called in bookings as well, so they'd have another eight people in the restaurant for support.

* * *

They worked through until lunch, then headed off to Los Alamitos to board the fuelled and readied J Seventy for the flight to Tipton Field.

By the time they arrived at the restaurant, everyone else was in place, and they reported that Pete had arrived and there was no sign of anyone else from the CIA. Chuck, Sarah and Zondra were directed straight to their table and Sarah had fun introducing Pete to his 'blind date' and her new husband. They saw Pete visibly relax when Zondra went to kiss him on the cheek and whispered in his ear "Relax, I'm just here in case you were followed by the CIA, which as far as we can see you haven't been." but it was obvious he was still nervous about something.

Once they'd ordered and were alone, Pete looked nervously at Chuck and Zondra but Sarah assured him that he could say anything in front of them and he nodded. "Sarah… I have to apologise to you, you see I didn't know that you weren't partners with Larkin any more, so when he came to me four or five months ago to get some specialised equipment for an assignment, I got it for him…. I also slept with him because I knew from what you'd told me that you two weren't a couple like all the stories said and… well he was so damned cute!"

They laughed good naturedly at that and Sarah squeezed his hand reassuringly, but he had more to tell them. "A few weeks later though, I found that what Larkin had been getting the equipment for was to steal something from some place called the Intersect Facility. And I found that out because they brought in the device I'd set up for him to find out who the transmission had been sent to. The device was totally fried, whoever created it had been damned good, but I _knew_ that it had gone to a Chuck Bartowski in Los Angeles because _I'd_ set the damned thing up to do it. So I pretended to extract those details from the fried device a bit at a time so that they'd catch Larkin's accomplice at least…. I'm so sorry Sarah, please believe that I would _never_ have helped that bastard if I knew that he wasn't your partner any more!"

He couldn't understand why Sarah and the others were laughing, until Sarah reached over to squeeze his hand reassuringly. "I'm sorry Pete Honey, I think I need to introduce my husband properly, you see Charlie is actually in the game as well, and back in September he was operating under a different name, Chuck Bartowski!"

Pete looked horrified at Chuck but Sarah went on. "No Pete! Chuck was _never_ Larkin's accomplice! Larkin was blackmailing him to cover for him back when they were room mates at Stanford and he had Chuck framed for cheating and expelled just before they were supposed to have graduated, and _then_ slept with the friend who he thought was Chuck's girlfriend, making sure _everyone_ knew about both of those things to try and destroy him. We don't exactly know _why_ Larkin sent that transmission to him, we believe that he was hoping to kill him, or at least severely damage him, because the program that he sent him had killed or brain wiped all of its known test subjects, but the CIA didn't know about the two other people who had managed to survive the experience. Graham sent me after Larkin's accomplice in Los Angeles to retrieve what Larkin had sent him, and you can imagine how shocked I was when I got there and found that this guy was my Charlie!..."

"Anyway, we don't know for sure how much time we have so I'll get to it, Zondra, Casey, Carina, Robin and I" waving to the table where Casey was sitting with Carina and Robin when she said their names "have all been detached from our agencies to work together on a special assignment that's related to what Larkin sent Chuck, that's why you haven't heard from me since September, because I'm not really CIA any more. Chuck and the team in Los Angeles also work on other things for the military and intelligence agencies and Chuck is in charge of their cyber group, but he's only got four people including himself in the core group and they're swamped, so he spends all night every night working and I want my husband with me _sometimes_ at night….."

She paused at the look Pete gave her. "Yes, our marriage is _very_ real Pete, we were kept apart for over eighteen years and we weren't going to be apart again!…. So I suggested someone I knew in the CIA who might be able to help. Chuck agreed that you're quite good… _Mongol_ … so he agreed to let me to call you to set up a talk, and here we are."

Pete was looking nervous again. "How do you know about that name Sarah, for that matter how does _he_?"

Sarah smiled at him. "Who's your hacker superhero Pete?"

"The Piranha of course, what…."

He stopped when her smile widened into a shit eating grin. " _No?_ "

She just nodded and reached out to take Chuck's hand. " _Yep_! I always thought that there was something fishy about my Charlie."

He looked at Chuck in disbelief and he nodded with a smile. "I'm afraid so Pete, and by the way, the Lotus, Rosco and Skippy said to say hi. So….. Can we interest you in leaving the CIA and your whole life behind and coming to join us?"

Pete shook his head sadly. "Are you kidding? I'd _love_ to join you, but there's no way that the CIA would ever let me go."

"We haven't worked out all the details yet, but I can guarantee we can get you away from them. The only thing I'm worried about is whether they'll have anyone left who's good enough to track you after you're gone."

Pete looked thoughtful at that. "Sarah said that your cyber group's swamped with work Charlie, do you have room for more people?"

It was Chuck's turn to look thoughtful. "If they can fit in with us, sure, who are you thinking of?"

"Haxman, Gimli and the Krait, if we get them to come too, the CIA wouldn't have any hope of tracking us on-line."

Chuck nodded thoughtfully, because they were all around, or at least close to, Pete and Skip's level, and the Intersect wasn't throwing up any alarms on their hacker or real names. The fact that he actually hadn't known that Gimli or the Krait worked for the CIA was another point in their favour, because that demonstrated serious skill at covering their tracks. "If they're prepared to leave everything behind and start over again with new lives… yeah, we'll definitely make a place for them as well."

Pete pulled out his phone and after Chuck had checked it for bugs, spent the next half hour in whispered discussions. When he was done and no-one else was in earshot, Pete nodded. "They're all in, so how do we do this?"

They quickly finished their meals and settled up, heading back to Tipton Field so that Chuck could get access to the computers he needed to set this up. Chuck had Pete call them all back and get them to pack up and tag the things that they really wanted to keep and make sure they understood how the people coming to pick them up would identify themselves, while he took over a computer to build the case that they would be used to explain why FBI strike teams had broken into the apartments of four CIA technical personnel, ransacking them and taking the techs, computers and other items with them when they left.

Once everything had been set up, Pete rang the others to tell them what was happening and went home, to get ready for when _he_ was arrested by the FBI. Half an hour later, he was wondering what he'd let himself in for when the door of his apartment was smashed in and a few flash bangs were thrown it ahead of what seemed like dozens of masked, black clad figures with _lots_ of guns. He was trying to clear his head when he was thrown to the floor, roughly secured with zip ties and dragged to his feet again, and he could only just tell that it was _Sarah's_ voice that was telling him to act frightened as he pointed to things around the apartment because of the ringing in his ears. He didn't need at _act_ frightened, he _was_ frightened, it was the most terrifying experience he'd ever had!

Sarah dragged him out the door while they were still ripping everything apart, but his apartment had already been trashed as they ransacked it. In the car, he was still trying to clear his head as Sarah released him and anxiously asked him if he was OK, apologising for roughing him up but saying that it had to be believable. He had to laugh at that. "Oh, it was believable alright! I knew the plan but _I_ believed it was real up until I recognised your voice! I understand now why Chuck told me to make sure the others understood what signal you'd be using to identify yourselves, they must have been as terrified as I was!"

All the strikes were done inside an hour, leaving nothing but ransacked apartments with their doors broken in, and once they'd collected the last one, the Krait, they were taken straight to Tipton Field and hustled onto the J Seventy to be flown back to LA. The FBI records showed that they had all been arrested for hacking into highly sensitive military systems and that they and their computers had been handed over to the military. There was no record of what had happened to them after that.

* * *

They were all back in LA by the time the CIA found out that their four best computer people had vanished without a trace overnight. When people were sent to their apartments to check on them, they'd all been ransacked and the neighbours all told similar stories about being woken up in the middle of the night by teams of men in black SWAT gear breaking into the men's (and woman's, because the Krait was actually Lizzie Gupta, a young Indian woman who'd been rejected by her family for choosing an occupation that was unsuitable for a good Indian girl) apartments. Some of the neighbours identified the strike teams as FBI, and as Roan had said, Director Graham went on a rampage.

The fact that the FBI couldn't find any records of the operation other than that one of their strike teams (no indication which one) had apparently picked these people and their computers up for hacking into sensitive military systems and turned them over to the military infuriated Graham even more, and he went positively ballistic when he demanded that those people be found and he was told that the ones who disappeared were the _only_ people that the CIA had had who had any chance of doing that.

Graham actually got incensed enough to pick up the phone and call the one person he attributed all his cares and woes to. "Where are my techs Beckman?"

Diane had no trouble acting confused, because she _was_... techs? Chuck was only supposed to be having initial discussions with _one_ man, so why was Graham talking about losing multiple techs?

"I'm afraid that I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about Director, could you be more clear?"

"Four of the CIA's top technical personnel were grabbed by FBI strike teams on trumped up charges last night and handed over to the military. I want them back!"

"If your people were arrested by the FBI Director, you should be talking to the FBI, not me. What the FBI does has nothing to do with me."

"I've talked to the damned FBI! All their records show is that one of their strike teams, no-one seems to know which one, grabbed my people on some trumped up charges of hacking into sensitive military systems and then turned them over to the military, again no-one seems to know what part of the military. This has you written all over it Beckman and I want my people back!"

"I refuse to discuss this with you any further until you have calmed down Director Graham. I have already _told_ you that I do not know anything about your people disappearing but you just keep making unfounded accusations! If you can't get the answers you want from the FBI, I would suggest that you contact the NSA, DIA or STRATCOM, as they have all the most sensitive military systems. Alternatively, take the matter up with the DNI, but do not attempt to contact me about this again Director, as I shall be instructing my assistants to reject any calls from you until such a time as the DNI has informed me that you are prepared to discuss the matter calmly and rationally, and even then I will be insisting on an impartial arbitrator to be present for any discussions. Good Day!"

She burst out laughing once she'd hung up the phone, then made the effort to compose herself before she called the DNI about the crazy accusations that the Director of the CIA was making in regard to some personnel he'd lost.

When the DNI asked her straight out whether she _did_ have anything to do with the disappearance of those CIA personnel, she paused momentarily, because she'd just realised that she had to kiss her godson the next time she saw him as he had done this without her knowledge... as far as she had known, they were only planning to _talk_ to one man, _not_ make _four_ of Graham's top techs disappear into the ether overnight! "No Sir, I will swear in court if necessary that I had absolutely no part in any operations to arrest or abscond with any CIA personnel… last night."

The DNI paused too, because he knew that he wasn't getting the whole story here, but he also had enough history with her to know that Diane Beckman was no fool, she was one hell of a lot smarter than most people realised, so if she said she was prepared to testify in court to the fact that she had had no part of what happened last night, _that_ was the truth. Now if he'd asked 'do you know anything about' rather than 'did you have anything to do with' the answer may have been different, but there was no way he was going to ask that _now_ , not when he currently had plausible deniability in this matter.

"Very well General Beckman, please inform me if you receive any intel on this matter. I will do what I can to make Director Graham understand that you had no part in what happened to his personnel."

"Thank you Sir."

"Goodbye Diane."

"Bye Mike, talk to you soon."

Once she got off the phone, she hopped up and did a victory dance, singing 'I feel good', something which would have totally shocked 99.999% of the people who thought they knew Old Iron Pants, then sat back down to send the recordings of the last two phone calls to Chuck in LA with a note. 'Thank you Honey. I hadn't realised until Mike asked me whether I'd had part in what happened last night that I could quite honestly testify that I _didn't_ , in fact I didn't even know what really happened.'

 **A/N: Yes, The Krait is Lizzie from Chuck Versus the Marlin, 'cause she's pretty, petite and Indian, and around the same age as the other major players. The story line is that she chose 'the Krait' as her hacker name because they're Indian snakes that are supposed to be small but deadly.**

 **I _had_ considered Letcher Patel for the Krait, for about 5 seconds, but I think I threw up a little in my mouth and decided _NOOOOOO._**


	15. Backfires and Blasts From The Past

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be a few changes in the first hour or so as I tend to fix things that don't look quite right to me in the final form.**

While they'd been concentrating on building their covers, their wedding, the stealth projects at Red Mountain and their 'cover' businesses, as well as the Spectre group and the Human Intersect Project work though, Graham had been staging lots of meetings with the old school types who supported his attempts to get rid of 'that bitch' and the upstarts she commanded. He'd started this just after he lost the Human Intersect Project to Beckman, and even with his recent misfortunes he still had considerable political support from the Vietnam War die hards, so he'd managed to get the funding he needed to fast track the rebuilding of the Intersect systems authorised. He couldn't cut Beckman out of the process completely as she was the Co-Director of the Intersect Project, but he was the one in control of the game this time as he'd ensured that any discussions they had on the matter of rebuilding the Intersect Computers were in front of people who were convinced that they needed the traditional Intersect Facility operational, so she couldn't argue against it without weakening her own position. Of course, the discussions he had about the _Human_ Intersect were another matter altogether.

Graham made certain that Beckman and her supporters never heard about _those_ discussions, but they were just as successful. He'd used the profile that Chuck had created to lock Sarah into the Human Intersect Team the way he wanted to convince enough of the top brass that the risks inherent in allowing a weak, mentally fragile _civilian_ to wander around with the biggest secrets of the free world in their head were totally unacceptable. He'd used the incidence of high value prisoners disappearing from CIA and NSA black sites to build a convincing case against grabbing him and throwing him in a hole either, as the evidence showed that the 'other side' could get him out of there and then use him against the nation. No, the _only_ solution to the problem that the civilian Human Intersect represented was to eliminate the threat as quickly and cleanly as possible, he also made a point of arguing that the Human Intersect's contributions to date had earned him a quick and clean death and tried to look sympathetic as he stated that the risk was simply too great to allow him to live.

Confident that the new Intersect Computer was close to completion and he had ensured that Bartowski would die as soon as it came on line, Graham turned his attention to what was, to him, the _bigger_ issue, organising to get Walker back under his thumb and finding a way to control her properly. He'd only ever had two things that he could hold over Walker, and had to accept the only really viable option he'd ever had, her mother, was no longer viable because Walker would be bound to demand to see her to make sure that she was OK before she'd do anything. For some reason, ever since she joined Beckman's team she seemed to have stopped being afraid of what he might do to her mother.

Between them, Bentley and Beckman had rendered what he'd been sure would be an absolutely bullet proof mechanism to keep Walker under control useless, and he'd make sure that they both paid for that when the time came. Given that he'd _never_ actually had her mother in a position where he could make good on his threats of what he'd do to her if Walker didn't do as she was told anyway, he'd have to go with his other option now, her father. It had been obvious from the very start that Jack Burton had never been close to his daughter's heart and she seemed to have almost completely forgotten about him over the ensuing years... but as Burton was the only thing he had to work with now, they'd have to do something to change that.

Graham made the arrangements to have Jack Burton released, and went to see him on his last day, telling him how well Jenny was doing with her rich mark in LA, but stipulating that a condition of his parole was that he stay away from her and anything else to do with cons. The threat about arresting him and ensuring that he was put away for the rest of his life was playing on Burton's ego, as was telling him that his daughter had a rich mark and then ordering him to stay away from her or anyone else he'd done cons with. He knew that that would only guarantee that Burton would run out and do exactly what he'd threatened him not to, just to try and show that he was smarter than Graham and everyone else. The final touch was to 'grudgingly' give him Walker's phone number so that he could at least talk to his daughter, seeing that he wasn't allowed to go and see her.

Burton wasn't hard to play, and it was now an absolute certainty that he would be heading straight for LA to try to work his daughter's rich mark, and that he'd try to pull other cons first in an attempt to be able to impress her and the mark when he saw them. Graham would let them have a hopefully tearful reunion and then as soon as his people had evidence that they'd bonded enough to make Burton of value to him again, he'd be grabbed and locked up again, to give him something to hold over her. If she didn't warm to him quick enough, with any luck a suitably violent take down right in front of her would be enough to tug at her heart strings and move her to try to protect him. He couldn't remember anyone else ever being anywhere near as hard to work as Sarah Walker had proven herself to be, but she was the best agent he'd ever seen by far, even better than Frost thanks to that brain she got from her mother... he paused as he remembered that Frost hadn't been easy to work either... _and_ that she had been Walker's mother's friend, how the hell had he forgotten _that_? He'd have to step up Walker's programming to regard Frost as a threat when he got her back... but first, he had to find a way to get Walker back under his control again!... Being able to punish Burton a bit more for being the reason the CIA lost the best analyst it had ever had would just be a bonus.

* * *

They were a little surprised when Graham engaged the Human Intersect team himself again a month or so after they spirited Pete and the others away from the CIA, because the Director of the National Clandestine Service had been their liaison for all CIA engagements ever since they had further shredded his image and influence with the Nadan-I-Noor mission. None of them were complaining in the least about that, as dealing with Jane had been far more pleasant, efficient and professional. They could see from what flashed briefly across Auntie Di's face as Graham was talking that she understood why he was handling this matter himself, so they'd be talking to her about that separately.

Graham had trouble keeping the triumphant smile off his face until he got off the link to Beckman's team, because this was just perfect! When they got the cipher for him, and he was confident that they would, that would be the end of the Human Intersect team, and especially that pain in the arse Bartowski, so they'd be delivering the instrument of their own destruction to him... As soon as the cipher was recovered and they activated the Intersect computer, which was being completed at that very moment, he could give the people he'd lined up the signal to put their plans into play to have Beckman's Human Intersect eliminated as the risk to national security that he was.

Of course he was furious about needing to get them to recover the cipher for him, but it was now obvious that the DNA they had on record for that 'lab technician' who'd disappeared from the hospital after the last Intersect computer was blown up would in fact match the corpse that was supposed to belong to Jonas Zarnow if they exhumed it. Graham was kicking himself now, as Zarnow had been in the building at the time the computers blew up and he knew the value of the cipher to the Intersect Computer, but when they found no trace of the cipher in the wreckage and Zarnow's ID card on an unrecognisable body, in the panic of trying to cover up the mess Larkin had created before it came back on him he hadn't questioned it or ordered the identity of the cadaver to be confirmed, he'd just accepted it like everyone else. That had made him feel like a fool, he didn't like that at all and he was going to make sure that Zarnow and anyone else who had been involved paid for it when he got his hands on them!

On top of that, Beckman had identified one of the others listed as dying in the explosions at the facility as the engineer who'd actually created the cipher, _helpfully_ pointing out that no-one else had been able to get it to work, and they hadn't been able to find any detailed designs to re-create it with, it was as though everything to do with the final cipher design had been scrubbed from the system, mind you that applied to most things connected to the Intersect since Larkin blew up the facility so that in itself wasn't too suspicious. When she gave him that news, they'd assigned Mahnovski and some of their other best and brightest to the job of building them a working cipher, but they hadn't come remotely close to getting it working before Mahnovski, and then the rest of them, disappeared, no matter what resources they were given to get the job done. And with Mahnovski and the rest of CIA's best techs gone, there was _no_ chance of creating a working cipher now.

That was why when the word started going around about the cipher being offered to the highest bidder, he knew that he _had_ to get it. He'd had his agents chasing any leads ever since the word first came out, but they hadn't turned up a thing and time was running out. While Graham would never admit it out loud, he knew that Beckman's team were his only hope to recover that cipher before it was sold to anyone else. Even if it cost another half million, million or more to get them to recover it, that was a drop in the bucket compared to what it would cost to actually _buy_ the cipher, so he bit the bullet and engaged them to recover it. At least he'd have the satisfaction of knowing that they had delivered the very thing which would be the key to their destruction to him.

* * *

When they started another secure link with Di after the video-conference with Graham had finished, she was looking devastated, so something was obviously wrong. She explained just what the cipher was, but then she faltered, so Chuck stepped in. "It's alright Auntie Di, I understand that they'll be putting out a termination order on me as soon as the new Intersect Computer's operational."

Sarah, John, Robin, Carina and Zondra reacted to that, because they hadn't made the connection between the new Intersect being operational and getting rid of the old one yet. As Di still didn't appear up to explaining that, Chuck did. "As soon as the new Intersect's operational, Graham and others will be arguing that it's an unacceptable risk to have a civilian running around with all the free world's darkest secrets in his head, because it would be too easy for me to be grabbed and used against the nation. The obvious solution that they'll put forward, if they haven't already, is for that risk to be eliminated immediately in order to protect the nation."

When he put it like that, it was so obvious that the four agents were angry at themselves for not seeing it before. The biggest surprise though was the fact that John was only slightly less incensed about this than Sarah was, as they were both ready to go out and wipe out anyone and everyone connected to this. Di put him on the spot about it. "John, I quite understand why Sarah, his wife, is so ready to go on a killing spree over this, but why are _you_ so angry about this?"

Casey looked around the group, uncomfortable with the attention, and asked "Could we discuss this in private Ma'am? Please?", but Carina piped up.

"No! We all have a right to hear this!"

Then she gave him one of the old Carina's sultry smiles. "If we don't get to hear your reasons Johnny, we'll just have to come up with our own, and you _know_ what sort of things I'll come up with!"

He looked horrified at the thought of that, because images of leather bars and bondage houses had flashed through his head at that, even though the two of them were married and had been together more than a few times over the past ten years so she knew his preferences quite well, and he blurted out. "Alright, I'll tell you, just stop talking, please!" He gathered himself and then began to speak.

"As you all know, I've been attached to this family since Ninety…." The others nodded. "I've been working with Chuck mostly, and in that time I've seen him grow from a brilliant and dedicated boy becoming a man before his time, into the best man I know, a _great_ man. We've taken on what should have been insurmountable odds together time and again together, and won, and I've come to respect and admire him more than any other. More than that, I've come to love him like family, like a brother, a son, so anyone who wants to come after Chuck will have to go through me first!"

Di nodded musingly "Thank you John, I know that that must have been hard for you to share."

They were all quiet after that, a few of them had tears in their eyes and Sarah leaned over to kiss him on the cheek with a quiet but fervent "Thank you John!", but Diane brought the discussion back to the matter at hand, the inevitable termination order. It was agreed that Diane would work on the DNI and the President to try and ensure that any termination orders were squashed, using the team's track record to show the value of the Human Intersect. A reshuffle of the accommodation so that all of the best of their special ops people were living on-site in El Castillo and bringing all of El Castillo's security systems to high alert was also agreed to improve their defences. In the meantime, the team started hunting for the cipher.

* * *

What they were finding when they were chasing the cipher was setting off alarm bells though, because whenever they followed through on a lead, the ones they found were nothing but second rate mercenaries or criminals, and they were suspicious about the fact that it was too easy. They reported this to Graham, but he angrily told them that their job was to find the cipher, not come up with ridiculous conspiracy theories, so they just shrugged and went back to the hunt.

They had everyone moved in and people monitoring El Castillo's security systems twenty four seven within a week, even with doing things on the quiet as they were, so everything was in place by the time they located the cipher and sent it to DC a week later. It wasn't lost on anyone that Graham paid the $850,000 bill paid immediately and without question, so they got ready for a fight.

* * *

Langston Graham was more excited than he could remember being when the cipher was delivered to him. He'd had his selected agents brought into DC in preparation for this a week ago and his technicians were all geared up, ready to run the upload as soon as they had the opportunity, as they'd only been waiting on the cipher to arrive. He _was_ worried about what Beckman might pull to thwart his plans, because that pint sized bitch had bested him too many times in the past, so he was going to make damned sure that she didn't manage to do it again! There wasn't a doubt in his mind that her team had been trying to stall him with all that talk about it being too easy to give her more time to get things in place, because if it was really _that_ easy the CIA agents he'd had chasing the cipher would have found something. That was why he set his plans in motion the moment he had word that the cipher was on its way.

His plan was simple, his people would take over the Intersect Facility at 0400. He gave them orders to subdue the NSA guards if possible to minimise the political backlash once the dust had settled, but stressed that they _must_ be prevented from raising any alarms. Once the facility was under their control, his technicians would go in and set up everything for the upload, and he would be there by 0500 with his six selected agents to do the upload. He wouldn't normally have involved himself in something like this, but he couldn't deny himself the satisfaction of personally initiating the event which would trigger his inevitable victory. With his team of Intersect Agents taking the lead on the world's Intelligence events and Beckman's pathetic excuse of a Human Intersect eliminated, no-one would be able to interfere with his plans! The fact that the Intersect code and databases would somehow be wiped out again as soon as his agents had been uploaded with it was just insurance to ensure that he had the only Intersect agents... Until he used the copy of the Intersect that his people had taken to buy his place into the upper echelon of the Ring anyway.

To make sure that he got the threat of Beckman and her team out of the way, as soon as he had the cipher in his hands, he contacted the ones he'd teed up to support the Human Intersect's termination order and advised them that the Intersect Computer was now operational (OK, that was jumping the gun a little, but they didn't need to know that). That was enough to set things in motion, so the selected Special Mission Unit received the kill order signed by the Vice President, supported by the National Security Advisor, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and two other four star generals.

At 0455, Graham went into the Intersect Room in the Intersect Facility and put on his safety glasses. He looked at the agents and angrily told them. "Get those damned sunglasses off you idiots! Who do you think you are, Corey Hart?"

After they'd hastily taken their sunglasses off and were looking suitably chastised, he turned back to the console and activated the upload, but when the message 'FULCRUM THANKS YOU.' flashed up on the screen, he only had time to get out "Oh Fu…." before a massive power surge fried nearly everything in the building. On the floor where the computer facilities and the Intersect Room were, absolutely everything was fried, including the fragile human beings in the Intersect room and the control room, even the guards outside the Intersect room were electrocuted.

The fire systems in the Intersect Facility were heat activated rather than electrical, so they still triggered when the fires started up. After Larkin had blown up the last Intersect Facility, they'd implemented security systems at a level beyond any used in government facilities up to that point for the new facility, and one of the fail safes that they'd included was a 'heartbeat' signal that triggered alerts if it stopped, so the second that the building's electrical systems were fried, the alerts went out to everyone significant connected to the Intersect Project.

* * *

At 2 in the morning, Chuck, Sarah and most of the team were woken by the people currently monitoring El Castillo's security systems, because the sensors were picking up incoming parachutists, obviously doing HALO jumps as there hadn't been any alerts of low flying aircraft, as well as another team trying to hack into the security systems on the doors on the ground floor. Everyone mobilised, with some of the security team heading up to El Castillo Jardines and other going down and slipping out through the tunnels to come up behind the SMU team trying to breach the building on the ground floor.

The SMU team on the ground floor had gotten frustrated by the fact that they couldn't do anything to override the security system and decided that they'd have to blow the doors to get inside in the required timeframe, just as the HALO team landed on the roof, so the security team keyed up the defensive systems at both ends. When they'd prepared the charge downstairs and were heading for the doors to set it, several thousand volts were sent through the decorative metal patterns embedded in the sidewalk, which was more than enough to fry the ones near the door, which in turn led to over half of the ground team being mowed down as the ones being electrocuted's fingers clenched on the triggers of the M4s most of them were holding at the ready. While the survivors were trying to recover from that, they were easily taken by the security team who'd gone down to deal with them.

When the HALO team landed and were advancing on the Keep, trying to work out where the doors were in that wall of mirror glass, Chuck lit up the area bright enough to melt their eyeballs, wearing night vision goggles as they were, and ordered them to lay down their weapons and surrender. Some of them tried to shoot out the lights so he and Sarah put anyone shooting down, using the remote controlled AS VALs mounted around the garden. Then Chuck repeated the order while the security team that had gone to the roof closed in on them, the ones who were left did as they were told when their vision cleared enough to make out the fact that they were surrounded.

* * *

As soon as they had the situation under control, Chuck called to warn Auntie Di. She was already on her way to the Intersect Facility, but she stopped where she was and waited for the rest of their people from Emerald Tower to catch up up with her, and they'd have their people from Tipton Field (and Philadelphia Northwest if they got there in time) go in with them too. She also called the DNI and advised him that an attempt had just been made by the SMU to terminate the Human Intersect. He advised her that a SEAL team would be dusting off from Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek ASAP and should be at the Intersect Facility within the hour, hanging up to get that in play, but ten minutes later she and others heading for the Intersect Facility to investigate the alerts they'd received got an email from him officially authorising her to take charge of the situation at the Intersect Facility and arrest anyone and everyone she deemed necessary at the facility.

At the Intersect Facility, the CIA agents who were there trying to break into the building were arrested by the NSA teams who had arrived on-site first, and Di used the order from the DNI to prevent them being taken off-site. Once the SEAL team arrived, she had full control of the site. A few of the CIA guards had been killed because they started shooting when the NSA engaged them, but the others left alive had quickly surrendered and were arrested. Half of the NSA guards inside the facility were still alive, but the rest had either been killed when the CIA took over the building or they'd been electrocuted.

In the Intersect Room, the only thing that was left to tell them anything was Fulcrum's message, which had been burnt into the console's screen when the systems fried, but Diane ordered the remains of the cipher to be pried out and given to her so that she could get her specialists to examine it. She also took all of the storage media they'd found in cases with the CIA technicians for the same reason.

* * *

Back in Los Angeles, they secured the prisoners and called for the FBI to come and take them into custody, along with the bodies and their vehicles. Chuck also got into the FAA's systems to get the details of the plane that had dropped the HALO jumpers and organised a clean up crew for the mess downstairs.

Di sent the remains of the cipher to Stephen and Leslie to see whether they could extract anything from it, along with the storage media. They managed to get most of the code off the chips that hadn't been fried and sent it to Jeff to try and reverse engineer it, as he was their expert in that area. When they went through the storage media, Stephen told her that this was the full intersect image, code and data. Meanwhile, Stephen examined the rest of the cipher and advised that it was a close copy of the last operational cipher, so the one that had been damaged in the explosions at the Intersect Facility that Larkin set off had almost certainly been used to create this one.

That was news that none of them wanted to hear, as that meant that the original cipher was out there, and if someone else had the designs for the Intersect computer, it may yet be used to create an operational Intersect Computer, so they needed to locate and recover it before it could be used for that purpose. In a rare instance of co-operation (actually, Jane had heard about it and passed the word on first), the CIA reported chatter that they'd picked up, saying that an ex-KGB agent by the name of Sasha Banacheck was supposed to be delivering the cipher for Fulcrum. Once the cat was out of the bag, other senior CIA officials grudgingly shared that their records showed that Banacheck was supposedly highly resistant to torture and the only time they'd ever managed to get anything significant out of her was when one of their agents had managed to seduce it out of her.

They'd clammed up then, and when pressed for the identity of this agent they told Diane that he'd recently become semi-retired and had apparently gone off-grid as they couldn't find him. Diane stopped the story at that point, so Chuck asked "What's with the games Auntie Di? Did you find out who it was or didn't you?"

She grinned then, saying, "Of course I did!... It was your Uncle Roan!" When the laughter died down, Chuck asked when he was supposed to be arriving, and she said that he would be flying in later that day on a commercial flight, so they settled down to try and locate Sasha Banacheck, to be ready to go when Uncle Roan was there to fill them in on her.

By then, Jeff had reverse engineered the code that Stephen and Leslie managed to extract from the chips on the cipher, and he reported that the majority of the code was focussed on locating and breaching any gateways into the SCADA and security systems from the computer network for the purpose of taking over the control and security systems to disable any alerts or alarms and trigger the power surge that had wiped everything at the facility. He'd located a few hacker tags in the code, but didn't recognise any of them, so he presumed that they were minor players, probably just college students trying to make a bit of money. The childish message they put up on the screen appeared to support that idea. The fact that he didn't find anything remotely related to the real Intersect in the code was a relief, but the original cipher could still contain valid code, so they needed to recover it.

* * *

They located Banacheck in an LA hotel, and prepared for the mission while they waited for Roan, but Chuck was trying to work out how to broach a subject with Sarah that she wasn't going to be happy about, until she snapped at him. "Stop looking at me like that and pussy footing around the issue! I get it, OK? You're going to have to be the one who does this because Casey is apparently incapable of seducing anyone but my sister! I'm just pissed off that Carina's husband can't take one for the team for once instead of _my_ husband!"

Casey spat his coffee across the conference table at that and snarled. "Alright! I'll seduce Banacheck! Just stop talking!"

Roan spoke up from the doorway. " _Absolutely not!_... John, there was a very good reason that I failed you twice in Seduction School, as the kids called it, it was because you always went into seduction as though it were a full frontal assault! You've shown us…." Glancing at Carina. "That if you can manage to push aside Major Casey, Grunt Supreme, enough to let the true Johnny Coburn shine through, you _can_ win the lady, but I have never seen you manage to exhibit anything remotely close to that in a mission capacity and quite frankly do not believe that it is possible. No, I'm afraid that you are correct Samara, Charles will have to be the one who does this."

Sarah didn't look happy about that, even though she accepted that it was necessary, and suddenly turned on Chuck as she remembered something else. "And you owe me an explanation about Ibiza! Because from what _he_ said" (hooking a thumb at John) "there was a hell of a lot more going on there than you told me about!"

Chuck swore under his breath, and the look he shot Casey promised a sparring session that one of them wasn't going to enjoy at all, and there was no question who _that_ was going to be. He turned to Sarah "OK, all the intel we had was that one of the girls at a particular party in Ibiza could tell us how locate a biological weapons shipment before it was shipped to the buyer, so I had to find out which one it was and get the location out of her. Most of them were only wearing bikini bottoms and they were just about all so far gone on a mixture of alcohol, ecstasy and other drugs that they could hardly remember their own names, which made extracting information from them a difficult task. They also wanted to get it on with anything with a pulse, so I think even John got lucky at least half a dozen times, even though _I_ was too busy trying to get the information that we were there for to have time for anything else."

Most of them snorted at that, though Carina didn't seem to find it at all funny. "When I eventually found the right girl, she was so off her face that it took me about half an hour to get the location out of her, so the fact that they couldn't remember their own names or what I'd told them my name was had _nothing_ to do with anything I was doing to them, because I wasn't doing any more than kissing and caressing them just enough to keep up the act, okay?"

When he went to stand up and storm out of the room though, Sarah threw herself at him, crying and begging him to forgive her. Casey was looking down at the table so he didn't realise that Carina was standing behind him until she hit him in the back of the head hard enough to bounce his head off the table and almost knock him out, as it was, it left him sitting there more then a little dazed to say the least.

When the two couples had sorted things out, Chuck went over the background information on Banacheck with Roan and arranged for him to be in the van outside to answer any other questions that may arise before he and Sarah went upstairs to get ready. When they came back down, Sarah and Roan went in the van with some of the Cinders Security team. At the hotel, Casey was behind the bar, while Rick and Carina and Michael and Zondra were also in the bar as couples, while the rest of the Cinders Security team were in the room above Banacheck's.

* * *

Chuck, or rather Philipe Deveraux, came roaring in in his black customised '07 SL 65 AMG, giving the valet a look that told him that he'd be dead if there was a single scratch on the car when he got it back, then headed for the bar. He ordered in French, and when Casey just looked blankly at him, swore at him quite eloquently in French, getting a low growl from Casey (who was actually quite fluent in French) and a laugh from Banacheck. He repeated his order in English and snapped at him to hurry up, and by the time Casey had the drink made, Banacheck was standing beside him, trying to engage him.

Carina was whispering to Sarah over the mic that Chuckles was _way_ too hot to be let off his leash in here among all these bitches in heat and Sarah managed a laugh for the first time since they'd started this. "Yeah, I know Red, and if you know what's good for you, you'll find some other dog to go sniffing after. Maybe the one behind the bar that you're married to?"

Carina turned serious for once. "Come on Blondie, I made sure he took his lumps for that, and you were there when I did!"

Sarah sighed. "Yeah, I know Red, but he was winding me up with those stories about Ibiza when he knew damn well it wasn't anything like what he tried to make me believe, so I'm still a little pissed with him, OK?"

Chuck cleared his throat at that point and they shut up, after murmuring 'Sorry'.

With Roan feeding Chuck the information on which of Banacheck's buttons to push, by the time they finished their first drink, she was ready to drag 'Philipe' off to her room, and he let her. As soon as the door closed on her bodyguards, waiting outside, Chuck put her out with a nerve strike, sticking her with a tranq dart for good measure before calling the team down from upstairs. A few of them swung down onto the balcony from the one above, while the others came down in two separate groups to take the guards down from both sides. As soon as the guards were down, the team dragged them into the room to get them out of sight.

It didn't take long for Chuck to flash on the cipher, as it was in the big pendant that Banacheck was wearing around her neck, but they took everything she had in the rooms anyway, and then carefully went through the rest of the suite to make sure that they hadn't missed anything. Then they took Banacheck, her guards and everything else they'd collected out via the rear stairs, while Philipe sauntered out the front door with black lace panties hanging out of his pocket (clean ones from Banacheck's bag, but they weren't to know that).

When they brought the SL 65 AMG up for him, he went over it with a fine toothed comb before grudgingly conceding that it was fine and giving the valet a good tip. Taking off at a good clip, he didn't get far before he stopped though, because there was a blonde angel looking for a lift just around the corner. Their kiss when Sarah got into the car was as though they hadn't had a fairly major fight just a few hours before.

Chuck called Auntie Di on the hands free before he took off again, explaining that Banacheck and her bodyguards were being taken to the FBI office until morning, and they'd pick her up and take her to the airport when the plane arrived to get her. He said that he didn't think that it was worth taking the bodyguards back east for processing, it was her call but he'd just give them to the FBI here.

When she asked about the cipher, he told her it looked damaged, they'd see about extracting the code and determining whether it was usable, in case it had already been copied by Fulcrum, but the official story was that it was damaged and unusable and had been destroyed to ensure that it didn't fall into the wrong hands, which he wanted to do anyway. Di laughed at that. "Have you forgotten that I've been doing this since before either of you were born Chuck?"

"Sorry Auntie Di, it's just been altogether a shit day."

She answered quietly "It sounds like you two are OK now at least?"

Chuck glanced at Sarah, getting a smile as she reached over to squeeze his hand. "Yeah, we're good Auntie Di."

"What about John and Carina?"

"They'll be okay, I'll tell Carina tonight that he didn't really screw those girls when they were off their faces. I'm pretty sure that she already knows that I only said that because he'd pissed me off by creating the problem with his cracks about me, but I'll make sure."

"That's my boy, you've always been a good boy Honey."

Chuck cut her off at that point. "We're just getting home Auntie Di, let us know what the arrangements are to be for Banacheck and her guards and we'll talk to you later."

"Okay, night Chuck, night Sarah" After they'd chorused back "Night Auntie Di", Chuck cut the link.

As John was still dealing with the prisoners, they went to see Carina and sort everything out first. That discussion didn't take long, because as he'd expected, she knew quite well that he was just saying that about John screwing all those girls when they were stoned because he was pissed off with him... and that most of what Sarah had said was for the same reason.

With everything right between them, they headed upstairs to the Keep to get changed before heading back down to the dungeon to have the debriefing about the events of the night, and to lock the cipher away in the safe.

* * *

Over the next few days, things were fairly quiet, they delivered Banacheck to Los Alamitos to be taken back to DC for questioning, her guards were processed by the FBI's Los Angeles office, and Chuck extracted the code from the cipher for Jeff to reverse engineer. When he'd done so, they went over the code he'd come up with and sent a copy to Stephen and Leslie to do the same. They all agreed when they'd gone through the code that it was too damaged to work, as there were too many gaps for the processes to complete properly. With what code that could be extracted on their systems, Diane agreed for the cipher to be destroyed, and they recorded the process and sent a copy of the video to her.

While their business(es) were going strong and they had plenty of work to do there, their intelligence workload took a serious downturn after the events around the second destruction of the Intersect facility. For start, there was a great deal of infighting over who would be taking over from Graham as the Director of the CIA. While none of the team trusted Graham's recommendation as his successor, they didn't have any hard evidence against him that they could use, so there wasn't anything that they could do to stop him being instated as the Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The best they could manage was to induce the DNI to get the President to put a hold on the Acting DCIA's confirmation process until after they'd seen what he'd do when he was in the job.

As far as the illegal kill order for the Human Intersect that was pushed through outside of the proper channels went, it wasn't much better. The JSOC Commander willingly admitted that he hadn't completed his duty properly when he accepted a kill order signed by the Vice President, National Security Advisor, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and two other generals but _not_ the President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Director of National Intelligence, _Chairman_ of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the rest of the National Security Council members required for a legitimate kill order without seeking confirmation through the proper channels because he'd been given the order by someone he trusted and shown evidence that this Bartowski was building a nuke that would be in the wild the next day unless he was stopped cold that night, and he was very careful to stay on the straight and narrow after that. Unfortunately, while the Vice President and National Security Advisor were both impeached, the matter failed to get the two thirds majority vote in the Senate that was required to prosecute them, so as they refused to resign they got off with little more than a slap on the wrist.

Their argument that Director Graham had presented very compelling evidence (conveniently without any documentation) to support the need to protect the country from the risks imposed by having an unstable civilian running around with all the free world's secrets in his head and that they'd been led to believe that it was all above board had been enough to give them a get out of jail free card. The Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the other two generals weren't so lucky, because as the JSOC Commander had accepted there were clear protocols to be followed by the US Military, so while they tried to use all the same arguments the politicians had, they were all dismissed from their services and lost the privileges associated with retiring as a four star general, though there wasn't enough evidence to push them down further than a two star general.

At least Di got agreement that without the cipher required to make the Intersect Computer operational, there was no justification to waste the money that would be required to rebuild the Intersect Facility again. She was also confirmed as the _sole_ Director of the Intersect Project, so she used the Intersect Project's remaining budgets to support the Human Intersect Project, though from that point it was only known as the Intersect Project. She kept a few of the key scientists and technicians who were working on maintenance and development of the parts of the project that applied to the Human Intersect and transferred the rest of the personnel elsewhere.

* * *

Things were still quiet while the dust was settling after Graham, his people and the Intersect Facility got fried and those involved in pushing through the unlawful kill order were dealt with (well some of them were anyway), when Sarah got a call from Langley. She called in Chuck and they hit the button to shut and seal the doors before answering it on speaker. "Walker. Secure."

"Agent Walker, this is Director of the CIA Gordon. We have just discovered that a file of highly sensitive information has been stolen by Fulcrum and it must be recovered as a matter of utmost urgency. Your new partner is currently on his way to Los Angeles. Your mission will be to accompany him to a function tomorrow evening and recover the information. You are to use any means necessary to recover this information from the man hosting this function, do you understand? After you complete this mission you will be returning to Langley with your partner as I am terminating your secondment to your current assignment so pack your bags. I do not know what Director Graham was thinking, allowing an agent like yourself to be assigned to an operation like that, but that will be rectified immediately."

"I'm afraid that I can't do that Director…."

"What do you mean _you can't do that_ Walker? Did you not hear me identify myself as the Director of the CIA? I don't know what stupid ideas you've been picking up over there Walker but you better get it through your head quick smart that you're a CIA agent and you'll do whatever the fuck I tell you to do without question or else!"

'One moment please Director." She quickly conferenced Auntie Di in.

She got out "Hello Sarah, is something wrong? I wasn't expecting to hear from you until lat..." before Sarah cut her off.

"General Beckman, I have the Acting Director of the CIA on the phone and he has just advised me that he's recalling me from my current assignment and sending me on a mission with my new CIA partner. He has also advised me that I am to return to Langley with my new partner immediately after this mission as he is terminating my involvement with the Intersect Project."

There was a silence for nearly a minute, because Di needed at least that long to get herself under control enough to speak without screaming. "Director, I was given the understanding that you were aware of the terms of Agent Walker's assignment to the Intersect Project but apparently you are not, you will have to contact the Director of National Intelligence to request that he clear you to be read into the relevant information regarding the Intersect Project. You really need to talk to the DNI about this Director but the short version is that Agent Walker has been permanently, irrevocably and _exclusively_ assigned to the Intersect Project so she can now accept orders from me alone, she cannot be recalled or reassigned and she will not be completing any direct missions for the CIA, whether they be with other CIA agents or solo. If you wish to engage the Intersect team to complete this mission for the CIA, the Director of the National Clandestine Service is well aware of the terms and process, as she usually handled these matters for Director Graham."

From the sound of the Director's breathing, he was hyper ventilating as he worked himself up, so they were just waiting for the explosion. He didn't disappoint on that front.

"Just who the fuck do you think you're talking to woman? Walker is CIA and she'll do whatever I fucking tell her to! And as for _you_ Beckman, you better clean out your desk and kiss your pension goodbye because I can assure you that I will be making sure that you're thrown out on your arse before the day's through!"

Diane took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself. "Very well Director, you will have to talk to the DNI about that though, because I only report to him and the President. In the meantime, do _not_ attempt to contact any of my agents directly ever again! The _only_ avenue open to you is to request my team's assistance through the proper channels like everyone else! Agent Walker, you are not to have any further direct discussions with the Acting Director of the CIA, is that understood?"

Sarah said. "Yes Ma'am."

"Good, now please terminate this call."

Sarah repeated "Yes Ma'am" then cut the call without another word.

As expected, the screen lit up with a video call in seconds and Di anxiously asked. "Are you okay Honey?"

"Yes Auntie Di, it was certainly unpleasant, but nothing that I haven't had to to deal with time and again over the past ten years."

"That's good, if you'll just wait a moment, I need to conference in the DNI, and also the Director of the NSA long enough to warn him about the call he's sure to get." They nodded as she did that.

When the two men came up on screen, she jumped into it. "General, I expect that you're about to get a phone call from the Acting Director of the CIA, demanding that you fire my arse because I just informed him that under the terms of Agent Walker's assignment to the Intersect Project, she could no longer take any orders or accept assignments from him, and that he couldn't recall her from the Intersect Project. I'm afraid that from the discussion we just had, that call will most likely be quite abusive."

He nodded "What am I allowed to tell him?…." Just then his desk phone started ringing and the DNI piped up. "Just answer it on speaker please General, I'll handle anything sensitive."

He nodded again and did as he was told. "Yes?"

"Just what sort of half arsed operation are you running over there General?"

"Who is this?"

"This is the Director of the Fucking CIA! And one of the jumped up little bitches you have over there just had the gall to try and tell _me_ that I could and couldn't do with my own fucking agents and then had her terminate my call!"

"From what I understand Director, General Beckman was quite correct in what she informed you."

"What, is that fucking bitch there with you?"

"No Director, General Beckman merely called to advise me to expect your call. I would strongly advise that you do not attempt to take this matter any further Director, as I can assure you that it will not go at all well for you if you do! The Director of National Intelligence is the only one who can clear you to be filled in on the Intersect Project so you need to contact him to be brought up to speed."

Gordon sneered at him. "I see that you're just as whipped as everyone says you are, _General_. Well _you_ may be afraid of some little jumped up over the hill skirt getting her panties in a twist but I can assure you that I'm _not_! You haven't heard the last of this!" With that, he obviously slammed the phone down from the crash that they heard over the line.

The Director of the NSA cut the link and grimaced. "Well, that was certainly unpleasant!"

Diane said "I'm sorry about that General…." but he cut her off.

"No General, it wasn't your fault, it was that..." He shook his head and then looked at the screen showing the DNI. "How do you want me to handle this if he does try to follow this up Sir?"

"Just refer him to me General. As you well know, anyone related to the Intersect Project is outside of your control, and quite frankly at the moment I'm not seeing much likelihood of Acting Director Gordon's tenure being long enough to justify giving him any more sensitive information about the Intersect Project or how it's handled than what he was given when he was signed into the acting role. When it comes to that, I can't understand how he's managed to rise as high as he has, behaving like that. I believe that I'll actually enjoy explaining to him in terms that he can understand, exactly how he will behave in regard to the Intersect project and his peers from this point on."

He looked at Di and Sarah on screen. "Agent Walker, General Beckman, would my understanding that your earlier communication with _Acting_ Director Gordon was even less pleasant than that be correct?"

When Di nodded, he went on. "I do apologise for that, you shouldn't have to put up with that type of behaviour. I don't suppose that you'd have a recording of that discussion would you?"

He could see that Di was looking at Sarah and Chuck's image so he did as well. He saw the couple share a look and then Agent Walker said. "Yes Sir, all calls on our phones here are recorded, we can upload it to the computer and forward it to you."

"If you could, that would be appreciated, I trust that there was nothing in that phone call that was sensitive for you or the General?"

She shook her head. "No Sir."

He nodded "While we're on a roll here, you wouldn't have a recording of this discussion as well would you? I heard what he said but it would be a help to be able to be able to quote the exact words that were said when we deal with this."

"No Sir, but we can provide you with a transcript of the discussion if you'd like?"

He looked a little confused at that, so Diane said. "Both Agent Walker and Mister Bartowski have eidetic memories Director, so they can provide exact transcripts of what was said."

That confused him even more. "Was I ever told that?"

Chuck piped up and said "Yes, a few times now Mister Mickmack" with a grin, but realised just what he'd let slip when the DNI froze at that, as there was only one engaging and brilliant young analyst who had ever gotten way with calling him that name, back when he was the Director of the NSA in the early to mid nineties, and he hadn't heard it since. That was enough to tie together all the little things that had been tugging at his memory ever since he took the position of DNI, especially why Mr Bartowski's current cover identity and manner were so familiar, because that young analyst had actually been one Charles Carmichael, who was part of the Spectre group.

He was staring at Chuck's image as he said quietly. "General Beckman, if you could make the time, I would like to see you in my office later please."

She just nodded and said. "Yes Sir, I'll head over once we finish this call."

With that, they wound up the video-conference and Sarah transcribed the discussion while Chuck got the recording off her phone, then they sent both to both Auntie Di and the DNI.

Once that was done, Sarah turned to Chuck and asked what had just happened?

He put his head in his hands. "I screwed up... _big_ time! I got away with calling him Mister Mickmack back when he was the Intelligence Advisor for the Joint Chiefs and then Director of the NSA between Ninety and Ninety Six because we were his go to team for hard intel and I made him laugh when he was pissed off from having to deal with all the drones day in, day out... as far as I know I was the only one who ever called him that. Now Auntie Di either has to try and somehow convince him that she let that name slip to me, or tell him the truth. The fact that I was officially working as Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade and then Lieutenant and Lieutenant Commander Charles Carmichael through that period and dealt with him directly often enough to be allowed to be informal just adds to the problem as he's all almost certain to remember the name Charles Carmichael."

* * *

In Washington, Di went straight to the DNI's office, and he asked her to take a seat, securing the office and activating electronic counter measures, but when he went to speak she held up her hand to stop him and pulled out a couple more devices that Stephen, Chuck, Lou and now Leslie had provided to her which were far more advanced and effective than what the DNI was able to get his hands on. Once they were activated and telling her that they were in fact secure she said. "Yes, Sir?"

"This is more of a 'Mike' discussion Diane, after all you've been pretty much part of the family to me and Terry for nearly thirty five years now, and I'm not sure that what I'm thinking at the moment isn't enough to rate sending me to the funny farm."

He looked at her for a long moment and then asked her straight. "Is Mister Bartowski _really_ the same Charles Carmichael that you had working for you eighteen years ago?"

"Yes Mike, he is."

"How is that possible?"

"He, and his entire family for that matter, are brilliant Mike. His father asked me to look after him and his sister when everything blew up with the CIA and he had to disappear in early Ninety and with your help I managed to create my special projects group, which was originally made up of them, their mother's best friend and a few specialists, on the quiet as soon as I made Major at the end of Eighty Nine, they were the core of the original Spectre group. Even though they were still children at the time, Chuck and his older sister Ellie were working as analysts with their mother's best friend from the very start, their mother joined them nearly a year later when she managed to get out of Russia and you know as well as I do the value of what that group has done for America over the past eighteen years."

He nodded slowly. "Why did you make all that crap up about him being a borderline basket case when he got the Intersect?"

"We had to get his mother's best friend's daughter out of Graham's clutches, and that was the only thing that Chuck could come up with in the time he had that would be enough to sway you and the President."

"Are you telling me _he_ came up with all that himself? Wait... did you say that it's his sister and Agent Walker's _mother_ who were the primary women in your original Spectre group?"

"Yes, and yes Mike... we'd been trying to find Samara ever since her father took her away back in November Eighty Nine, so you can imagine what a shock it was when she just walked into Chuck's office on a mission for Graham last September. Charlie and Sammie grew up together until her father took her away and they were quite literally childhood sweethearts, he hadn't stopped looking for her since the day she was taken away, well none of us did, but I'm not sure that even her own mother was any more dedicated than Chuck was to finding her..."

"Okay, there is something else you should know while I'm coming clean Mike... Emma, Sarah's mother, is my older half sister, so 'Agent Walker' is actually my niece... and there's no damned way that the CIA is ever going to get their hands on her again! _Or_ her mother for that matter, because Emma was their top analyst up until Joe took Sammie away and Emma went off looking for her, and she was so good at what she did that the CIA are still looking for her eighteen years later!"

He was just staring at her, shaking his head. He couldn't process this so he went back to the previous issue.

"But why would Mr Bartowski, Chuck, fabricate such a dysfunctional life story and make himself look so weak and pathetic? The President and I pretty much felt that we had to throw the sad sack a bone to stop him crawling into a hole and giving up."

Di nodded. "Exactly! He built a strong enough case to convince the two of you that he'd fall apart completely if we didn't ensure that Agent Walker never left, and furthermore that she would never be forced to do the type of missions that Graham and other parts of the CIA seemed to love to make female agents do again. So, to ensure that we kept access to the Intersect Database, you and the President pushed everything necessary through to protect Agent Walker and the rest of the team from anything of that nature."

He was getting angry now. "So you're telling me that he played me, the President and the rest of the American government for fools, just to make us do what he wanted?"

"No Mike, because if you _hadn't_ ensured those conditions were in place for to protect Sarah and the rest of them, Chuck, Sarah and the rest of the family, and probably Major Casey too I now realise, would have disappeared and you would never have seen any of them again. That family... _Our_ family represents the best minds in the intelligence world, period, and you've seen plenty of proof of that! So if you hadn't done what you did, you _would_ have lost all access to the Intersect data, along with the Spectre group. Just between you and me though Mike, if that ever does happen, don't send anyone after them that you want to get back. You know how good John Casey is?"

The DNI nodded, looking a little worried about where this was going now.

"Chuck, his mother, his sister and Sarah are all far better than John... Bai, Lexie, Charly and Katy are also definitely better than him, so was Sue before she was killed on a mission in Oh Five, and there may be others in the group who are better as well, but even if there aren't any more who are actually _better_ than him, there are definitely dozens more who are almost as good... I realise that this must be hard to believe Mike, but perhaps it will make more sense if you knew who Chuck and Ellie's mother is... Do you remember all those stories going around in the Seventies and Eighties about the CIA's legendary Agent Frost, the ones that most of the intelligence community were saying were nothing more than the CIA's spin doctoring to try and convince the intelligence world that they had the ultimate agent?"

He nodded again, looking even more worried this time.

"Well they were wrong, Frost is real. Mary _was_ the ultimate agent back then and she has three children, Ellie, Chuck and Viv. Mary began training Ellie, Chuck and Sarah as soon as they started to walk, that's why no-one else can touch them. If you need further proof of just what Frost's children are capable of, those SEAL tridents you saw Chuck, Ellie, Sarah, Benjie and the girls wearing at the weddings are quite real, Chuck and Ellie earned their's _and_ the SEALs' respect when they were in their mid teens. They're more commonly known as Mowgli and Raksha in the spec ops world, that's why the nation's best spec ops warriors were at their weddings to honour them. Benjie, Sarah and the other girls only earned their's recently, but SOCOM has known of and respected Sarah, Anna and Zoe for some time, and it was acknowledged by all present at their testing that Sarah and Chuck's little sister and daughters earned their tridents almost as easily as Mowgli and Raksha had. And in case you have any doubts, ask the Ranger Recon team he got out of that mess in Afghanistan in Oh Four whether Chuck earned his Medal of Honor... I did and they were quite adamant that he had! Men from that unit made up about a third of the Army's sabre arch at the wedding by the way. So if you want to take the family on, be prepared to go to war. What's left of that Special Mission Unit that Graham got to go after Chuck found out for themselves what it's like to go up against the family."

She took in his reaction to what she was telling him.

"It doesn't need to get to that though Mike, as you've seen yourself, this family has been diligently working for our nation's interests for over seventeen years now, and they've been more effective and done more than just about everyone else. As long as the nation doesn't do anything to threaten the ones that they love, they will continue to do so. That being said, things like what Graham did, kill orders against any of them and what we had today with the Acting DCIA are all things that I can assure you they _do_ regard as threatening the ones they love, and if those threats aren't stopped, well you definitely won't want to see what would happen, because you could well end up seeing American cities looking like war zones. They won't be the ones who endanger innocents, but war is war, and they won't hold back if anyone comes after them."

His worry had turned to outright fear now, so they talked for a while longer about the fact that Chuck and the others had all shown time and time again that they were dedicated to working for the good of the nation and that they were fighting _for_ America, rather than against her.

She actually had fun when he asked how they were so good at intel gathering and analysis if they were all warriors though, because she laughed.

"I told you Mike! My sister Emma! Mary trained them to be warriors and agents and Emma trained them to be analysts, though Mary's no slouch in that respect either, Mary and Stefan are both brilliant and Ellie and Chuck got the best of both of them. Sarah got her brilliance and just about all of her better aspects from Emma though. I will concede that she may have gotten _some_ of her physical prowess from her father, but as we discovered a year and a half ago, Emma's father was a bona fide hero too... he was one of the first Special Forces soldiers killed in Vietnam and he was awarded the Medal of Honor and promoted posthumously for his actions in the incident where he was killed when the Army didn't want to admit that we were even there, which tells you that what he did was noteworthy. I'd lay money on Sarah having got a good dose of what made her grandfather the hero he was from her mother because my big sister is a lot tougher than she looks... But I digress, in answer to your question Mike, as well as being trained by the greatest agent of the time, the kids were trained by a legendary analyst who still hasn't been matched by anyone else in the game, so that and their own brilliance is why they're so good."

When the discussion was finished, Di went back to her office and called Chuck. The first thing he asked was. "How much have I screwed things up Auntie Di?"

"I don't think that you have Honey, calling him Mister Mickmack just gave him the final piece of the puzzle to put all the things he's been wondering about since he took the job together."

"How much did you tell him?"

"Pretty much everything except for Mary, Roan, Charly and Sarah's Grandpa having been sleepers and Carina being my daughter, I mentioned your parents and Emma having trouble with the CIA and used the fact that Mary was Frost and Emma was on the run from them to explain that, but I pointed out that the government had seighteen years of proof of your loyalty and contributions to the nation and told him that if anyone tried to come after the family, they'd probably be looking at American cities becoming war zones, which scared him after I told him just how good you guys are."

They all packed it in at that, but the next morning they got another nasty surprise.


	16. Get Thee Behind Me Satan

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be a few changes in the first hour or so as I tend to fix things that don't look quite right to me in the final form.**

A little while before lunch the next morning, a man came strutting into John's reception area and tried to chat up Alex. John was ready to come out and pound him by the time he got around to what he was after.

"I'm here to see Sarah Walker."

Alex looked at him. "I'm afraid that we don't have anyone of that name at Cinders Security Sir."

The look he gave her then was more patronising than lascivious, which she found she much preferred.

"Listen Sweetheart, I know Sarah's here because she told me to meet her here to work out the details of our date tonight, so why don't you just call her for me. Tell you what, if you're a good girl, I'll pick you up after I finish with her and we can have some fun…."

Whatever else he was planning to say was cut off as John burst out of his office and took him by the throat.

Alex barked an order at her father. "Dad, No! You can't kill him, not yet any way." (Luckily, what she'd said didn't register with the object of his ire because he was struggling to breathe at that point.)

John didn't like that idea much but reluctantly conceded that she was right, and relaxed his grip on the man's throat, slightly, as he bit out. "Get the others to meet me in the bunker ASAP."

Alex nodded. "Right, now remember, no killing yet!"

The only reply she got was "We'll see!" as he dragged the man into his office with one hand still clamped around his neck.

Carina arrived in the bunker less than a minute ahead of Zondra and Robin, as they had all been working in the Cinders offices and shut down what they were doing as quick as they could, and watching the leggy beauty saunter down the stairs in one of the tiny dresses she still loved to wear, the idiot immediately started preening and attempted to charm the pants off of her... ignoring with contempt the fact that Robin and Zondra were doing everything they could to hold John back because in the space of five minutes this tool had made blatant advances to both his little girl and his wife, so the urge to annihilate the bastard had overridden his professionalism at that point.

Sarah and Chuck arrived together five minutes later, dressed rather more expensively than the others, as befitted a professional couple who owned and ran a very successful corporate empire together, and Sullivan immediately broke off trying to chat up Carina to home in on Sarah.

The intruder was too tied up in leering at Sarah and celebrating his luck at being partnered with such a legendary hottie as this to even notice Chuck at first, but when he saw past the better clothes and styled brown hair he had now instead of the cheap clothes and blonde mop he'd worn as Chuck Bartowski, he spat out. "Bartowski? What the hell are _you_ doing here?" (He had been one of Woodcomb's frat buddies so he only knew Chuck as Devon's hot girlfriend's loser brother.)

Chuck was having almost as much trouble staying calm as John had been when he responded, because this tool was undressing Sarah with his eyes and making his intentions quite plain. "I'm where I'm supposed to be Sullivan, the question is what are _you_ doing here?"

Sullivan leered at Sarah again as he said. "I'm here to get my partner and take her back to where she belongs."

Chuck stopped Sarah with a gentle squeeze of her hand as she tensed, ready to attack the tool. It took her a little while to get herself under control, but she squeezed his hand back and gave him a grateful smile when she did. Chuck looked at John and he nodded, initiating a video link to Auntie Di.

* * *

As the link came up, she was saying. "John? I wasn't expecting to hear from you, is this about…."

She stopped when she saw Sullivan sitting at the conference table and her eyes narrowed in anger. "Who the hell is that and what are they doing there?"

Chuck responded. "His name is Justin Sullivan General, and I presume that he's CIA as he just waltzed into the Cinders Security office saying that he'd come to get Agent Walker, his _partner_ , to take her back to where she belongs."

She didn't bother trying to cover up her anger this time. "I thought that we made all of this quite clear to that idiot yesterday! Wait a moment."

After a bit of quick work on the keyboard, the screen split to show the DNI as well. "Hello Diane, what…. Who the hell is _that_?"

Chuck repeated what he'd just said to Auntie Di and the DNI sighed in frustration. "Is it possible to get that idiot linked into this video conference so that we can sort him out once and for all please?"

Chuck said "Of course, Sir" and dropped Sarah's hand after one more squeeze to grab a keyboard off the conference table. His hands flew over the keyboard and after a short while a third screen popped up, showing the Acting DCIA scratching himself (or at least that was what they hoped he was doing). As soon as he saw Di he started shouting.

"Beckman? What the hell do you think you're…."

He cut off abruptly as he suddenly realised that the DNI was there as well.

The DNI didn't look at all happy as he asked. "I believe that you know who I am, don't you _D_ _irector_ Gordon?"

Gordon said "Of course Sir!", while obviously thinking. 'What the hell has that bitch gotten me into here?'

The DNI went on. "I was under the impression that between General Beckman and the Director of the NSA, they had managed to properly explain the situation to you yesterday Director, but I apparently overestimated your comprehension capabilities, so obviously _I_ will have to spell it out to you now…."

Di interrupted him. "I'm sorry Sir, but don't you think we should have Major Casey take Mister Sullivan elsewhere before you go any further into this?"

"No, you're quite right General. Major Casey, if you would be so good as to remove Mister Sullivan from the room while we discuss matters he's not cleared to hear, it would be appreciated."

John said "Of course Sir" and went to stand up, but Chuck held a hand up to stop John as he cut in.

"Excuse me Sir, but wouldn't it be better if Major Casey and the rest of the agents stayed for this discussion while _I_ escorted Mister Sullivan from the room?"

Di looked confused at that until Chuck added. "I presume that you will be discussing mission details, and there were also incidents involving Mister Sullivan, Major Casey's assistant and Agent Miller earlier which may create difficulties if Major Casey has to escort him."

Her eyes went wide in what would be best described as a horrified expression at that last and she quickly said. "Yes of course Mister Bartowski, that would be best, thank you."

Sullivan didn't know who that guy on the screen was and he wasn't about to let a loser like Bartowski push him around, so he tried to stand his ground, until Chuck dug into a nerve point as he grabbed his shoulder, putting him into too much pain to do any more than stumble along with him as Chuck dragged him from his seat to steer him out the door and into another meeting room, sealing the door there before he dumped him into a chair and moved away, pulling out his phone to send all the salient details about Sullivan through to Auntie Di.

* * *

Back in the other meeting room, DNI was wading into the Acting DCIA. "Director, I am having trouble understanding why you were apparently unable to comprehend what you were advised of yesterday, because as the…." He made a show of reading what was in front of him. "Director of the Fucking CIA', I would have expected your comprehension skills to be right up there, but I heard both General Beckman and the Director of the NSA explaining the process that must be followed to you, and still you openly sent…." He was interrupted by the text from Chuck that Diane had just forwarded to him and snorted in derision as he read it. "Mister Sullivan into what was supposed to be the highly secret operational base of another organisation to demand that he see someone who didn't even work at that cover business? Explain this to me please?"

"To the best of my knowledge, neither General Beckman or the Director of the NSA have any authority over any part of CIA operations Sir."

"That's the core issue right there Director!... Because as you have already been told, Agent Walker is now _exclusively_ part of the Intersect Team, so she will no longer be involved in _any_ way in any CIA operations. Quite aside from that, General Beckman and the Director of the NSA have both been respected members of some standing in the U.S. Intelligence community since the Nineteen Seventies, even more so in the last twenty years, and I know for a fact that both of them advised you to contact me about this yesterday, so why didn't you?"

"With all due respect Sir, I do not take orders from those below me."

The DNI had to take a moment to try and control himself before he responded. "No one, at any point, _ordered_ you to do anything, _D_ _irector_ , in fact the only person who has been attempting to throw his weight about in areas where he has no authority is _you_! And you better watch your tone and be damned careful about who you're referring to as being _below_ you if you know what's good for you. As I said, General Beckman and the Director of the NSA have both been known and respected throughout the Global Intelligence communities since the Seventies, and that's rather more than I can say for _you_!"

He was quiet for a moment as he gathered himself. "I will only say this once Gordon, so listen carefully! As General Beckman advised you yesterday, Agent Walker was _irrevocably_ transferred to the Intersect Project under _direct_ orders from the President at its inception. She is no longer under the control of or answerable to the CIA in _any_ way and she will _not_ accept any orders or assignments from _anyone_ in the CIA. She accepts orders _only_ from General Beckman, who in turn _only_ accepts orders from the President or myself, so I better not hear of you or anyone else in the CIA ever trying to give orders to her or any other member of the Intersect team again! The _only_ connection that Agent Walker has to the CIA any more is that she has retained her identity and authority as a CIA agent, just as the other agents in the Intersect Team have retained their identities with the agencies that they were transferred from. These rights are irrevocable, just like their transfers. Do you understand me Gordon?"

The Acting DCIA responded through gritted teeth. "Yes, Sir."

"So we will _never_ have to deal with any further incidents of this nature from the CIA, will we... _D_ _irector_?"

"No, Sir."

"Good! Now tell us what this mission that you decided that you needed Agent Walker for is."

"I don't believe that this should be discussed in front of non CIA people, Sir."

"This is the best team we have, and if it's as important as you told Agent Walker it is, it needs to be addressed as a matter or priority, so out with it!"

"Are you telling me that Agent Walker has shared details of a classified briefing from her superior with outside parties?"

"For Christ's sake! Did you hear any part of what I just told you Gordon? _N_ _o_ _!_ I'm telling you that Agent Walker quite rightly shared details of an unauthorised contact that should never have been made to her _with_ her superiors, that is General Beckman and myself, who are both cleared far higher than you are by the way, as are the rest of the Intersect team for that matter, now give me the details of this damned mission!"

Gordon was obviously making an effort to control his temper as he began. "A while ago, a deep cover agent we have inside Fulcrum got word to us that Fulcrum have managed to steal a storage chip that among other things has an encrypted database of highly sensitive information on it. Supposedly included in this database are the identities of our deep cover operatives..."

The DNI cut him off at that point. "Wait a minute Gordon, when you say 'our deep cover operatives', are you referring to the CIA's deep cover operatives, or what?"

"No Sir, it's reportedly every deep cover operative in the Intelligence communities of America and its allies…."

" ** _WHAT?_** You knew that this type of information was already in Fulcrum's hands and failed to report it because of some stupid territorial bullshit? That's criminal, if not treasonous, Director and if they _do_ manage to access that information, your's will one of be the first heads to roll, I can assure you of _that!_ General, can we get Mister Bartowski back in here please, we need to recover that information right now! Gordon, send all the information about this to General Beckman immediately so that we can get the Intersect team moving to recover what's on that chip!"

Carina ducked out to get Chuck as Gordon tried to argue. "Sir, something this important needs to be handled by qualified agents, that's why I sent my best agent to be partnered with Walker..."

The DNI snorted. "Best agent? _Sullivan_ is your best agent? If he's the best the CIA has to offer nowadays you may as well give up now Director, because Sullivan is nothing but a joke. No, we _will_ be using the best we have to clean this mess up, the Intersect team!"

Carina and Chuck came back in, with Sullivan in tow as the DCIA was saying. "Who have you got there to partner with Walker for a mission like this Sir? Major Casey? Everyone would see through that in an instant! I'm telling you the only agent we currently have in Los Angeles who is capable of doing this is Agent Sullivan."

Against her better judgement, Diane responded. "Not that we answer to you, _Director_ , but Agent Walker will be working with Mister Bartowski, using their established cover as the Carmichaels."

Sullivan snorted in derision. " _Bartowski?_ He's nothing but a half arsed computer repairman who fell apart and crawled into a hole after he got kicked out of Stanford for cheating! No, you need a _real_ agent for a mission this important, me!"

John turned on him. "Shut up you pathetic piece of shit, Bartowski's ten times the agent you could ever be!"

Sullivan sneered at him. "What, are you still pissed because I was taking your playthings away for the night Casey? Alright, you can have them back, I've got something much better now anyway."

He finished by smiling lasciviously at Sarah and giving her a look that he probably believed was charming.

Chuck stepped in to stop John as he lunged at the tool (making the act of stopping the enraged juggernaut look easy, even if most men twice his size couldn't have done it) while Carina and Zondra did the same with Sarah and Diane quickly texted just _who_ Major Casey's assistant really was to the DNI and reminded him of Carina's new status. When he read what was on his phone's screen he looked up in horror **_"No?"_** When Diane nodded grimly his face hardened and he snapped.

"Get that idiot out of there! Sullivan! If they _ever_ find you near the Intersect Team's base, cover business or operations, or anyone associated with that team or cover business again, or you ever say _anything_ about that team or base at all to _anyone_ , the Intersect Team is hereby authorised to shoot to kill, do you understand?"

Sullivan stared at the screen, wondering what the hell had just happened, so the DNI repeated his question in a roar **" _DO YOU UNDERSTAND?_ "** and he nodded, gulping "Yes, Sir!"

At that, the DNI said. "Get him the hell out of there please Mister Bartowski!"

Chuck said "Yes, Sir" and grabbed Sullivan in the same place he had before, frog marching him out of the room, bunker and building, to give him a push that all but threw him across the side walk to ram head first into his car (which he'd parked right in front of the door) hard enough to smash the side window in.

* * *

As Chuck came back into the room, the DNI was asking Di "Do you have the intel for the mission yet General?" When she shook her head and said "No Sir", he looked at the Acting DCIA's image "Gordon! I told you to send all the information to General Beckman over ten minutes ago, if she doesn't have it within the next minute you'll be sitting in Gitmo until we decide what charges to lay on you, and that could take years!"

She got it just inside the deadline and put it up on screen. As Chuck was looking at the data that was listed as being included he asked. "When and where was this stolen?"

Gordon obviously wasn't going to answer until the DNI barked "You were asked a question Gordon!" and he grudgingly said. "A classified facility in Fort Meade some time before Director Graham was killed."

Chuck frowned at that and the DNI asked. "What is it Mister Bartowski?"

Chuck glanced at the Acting DCIA's sweating face and then said. "From what I can see here and when and where it was stolen, this appears to be related to what was on the systems that were destroyed when Director Graham was killed Sir, and if so there should be a lot more than what we've been given."

"Is that true Gordon? Are you _still_ trying to withhold information about this? I told you to send _all_ the information to General Beckman! Sent the _entire_ fucking file to her _right now_ unless you want a troop of men like Major Casey kicking in your door to drag you out, screaming like a little girl, inside the hour!"

Inside a minute, Diane got a much bigger file and she went white as she saw what was listed as the rest of the information. When she put it up in place of the earlier information, most of them swore when they saw how much the scope had increased, and just how long the CIA had been sitting on this, the DNI included.

He grimly said. "Don't try to leave town Director, because I can assure you that it will go _much_ worse for you if you make us hunt you down!" then looked at Di's image and said "General?", nodding at Gordon's image. She nodded and signalled Chuck to cut the link to him.

The DNI sighed. "This is bad, we _have_ to recover that information and any copies that may have been made before Fulcrum or anyone else can get their hands on it. Is it possible for your team to get into that function tonight?"

Carina piped up from where she was looking over Chuck's shoulder. "The Carmichaels and their friends are already on the list Sir, so we'll have four couples in there."

Zondra pulled her phone away from her mouth and spoke next. "We're also working on slipping a few more of our people into the serving staff, so we should have enough coverage Sir."

Sarah took over then. "Chuck and I will take the lead Sir, we'll try to get away to find the chip and any other copies of the data that may have been made. If there's too much attention on us though, one of the other teams will have to go after it, but that will probably require a follow up visit to make sure that they haven't missed anything, given that Chuck is both the Intersect and our best computer expert. I just hope that they haven't cracked the encryption on any of those files sometime in the last couple of months."

The DNI nodded tiredly. "I'll leave you to it, Godspeed…. And by the way Chuck, when all this is over, I'd like to see you in Washington for a discussion about those recent developments please."

Chuck just met his gaze, saying "Yes, Sir" before the DNI cut his link.

* * *

When they started circulating at the function, which was actually a birthday party that the one Fulcrum had hired to break the encryption on the files was throwing for himself, Chuck and Sarah ran into a lot of people who knew the Carmichaels from the society circles and they spent a little while mingling, but the Carmichaels had already established the fact that they didn't like PDAs, so no-one was at all surprised when they disappeared soon after they started nuzzling each other. Between the nine of them inside the function, they'd attached numerous remote access devices to the computer and security networks and Anna, Jeff, Pete and the other techs out in the vans had taken over the systems. This meant that as far as the security cameras went, Chuck and Sarah were effectively invisible, and they talked them past any guards roaming the mansion as well.

They got into the host's office and vault, but while they found quite a bit of incriminating material and humongous amounts of cash and bearer bonds, they couldn't find the chip. Chuck hacked his way into the systems and found that the decryption processes were still running, and everything he located on the system relating to the files was luckily still encrypted. That was a relief, so with that they locked everything up again and went back to the party to find the chip, stopping for a make out session when they were back in a 'safe' area to explain what they'd been doing, and because they wanted to to tell the truth.

They were back on the dance floor and working their way closer to the host when Chuck snorted. Sarah just looked at him, waiting for him to tell her, them, what he'd discovered. As they were dancing cheek to cheek he spoke softly in her ear. "Are you still as good a pick pocket as you were when you were working with your father?"

"Pretty much, yeah, why?"

"Because our host just dropped his keys and I flashed on the key fob as he was picking them up, the chip we're after is in his key fob. If I keep him occupied for long enough can you get his keys and either get the chip out of the key fob or take the key fob without him noticing?"

"I can take the key fob and have his keys back in his pocket inside a few minutes, no problem, but getting the chip out would take longer, I really have no idea how long that might take. Couldn't we just swap the key fob so he wouldn't notice?"

"Maybe….. do any of you guys have key fobs on your keys? If so, can you show them to me so that I can compare them to his please?"

Over the next few minutes, the ones that did engineered situations to show him their key fobs and Chuck said. "Red, your's is the closest match to his, can you get it off your key ring and hand it off to Sarah when we bump into you please?"

"Sure thing Chuckie, just give me a minute…." With that she dropped her clutch and got down to pick up everything, and the next time the two couples bumped into each other she handed the fob off to Sarah.

They finished the next dance near the birthday boy and Sarah bumped past him to grab something for them to eat while Chuck was wishing him happy birthday, slipping the keys back into his pocket as she touched his arm to steal her husband away to have a nibble before they went back onto the dance floor.

Of course they still had to wipe out everything on the systems and ensure that he didn't have any other copies of the files anywhere else, but they did feel a little better with the chip in their possession.

* * *

Their relief was short lived, as Jeff suddenly swore. "Sullivan's here!"

John cut in "Where is he?" But just as Chuck was telling him to let it go, Anna snapped. "Don't worry about him! Birthday Boy is leaving with a woman, but from his expression he's not expecting to get any kissy kissy or a happy ending from her."

Chuck asked. "Where?"

"Heading for the door in the north east corner of the room."

Chuck got a good look at her and flashed. "She's Fulcrum, so she must be here to get the decrypted files. This could be useful actually, if we can capture her as well as him we can see what we can get out of the two of them."

Jeff piped up. "It looks like Sullivan might have had the same idea, because he's just ducked out through the foyer to cut them off."

Chuck nodded to himself "Right, we'll get behind him while someone else follows the others" and with that he and Sarah wafted across the dance floor and through the foyer deceptively quickly while John and Carina headed after the other pair.

They got the rear hall as the pair were coming down the hall with the Fulcrum agent berating the host about the fact that he'd promised to have the information on the chip decrypted for them over two weeks ago, so what was he doing throwing a party?

While the man tried to be suave, he just came across as a tool, but at least he was bright enough to realise that and he changed tack to ask about his fee. At that moment, Sullivan stepped out, pointing a pistol at him and saying. "You! You're going to open your vault and get me that chip!"

The Fulcrum agent stepped out from behind the host (hiding something behind her purse) and asked. "What are you doing here Justin?"

He smirked at her. "Juliette! Hello beautiful! Oh this is perfect, now I can bag the grand slam, the chip, him, _and_ a senior Fulcrum operative. This will show those bastards who the _real_ spy is!"

She smirked back at him, saying "Yes, it certainly will Justin!" as she quickly swept up the suppressed pistol that she'd been hiding to shoot him right between the eyes. The host was standing there, frozen in fear, as she turned back to him, but John quickly stepped forward to knock her out cold, muttering. "Dammit, _I_ wanted to be the one who killed that bastard, nice shot though!"

Chuck and Sarah ran up to them, Sarah checked Sullivan and smiled grimly at how definitively the Fulcrum agent had dealt with the bastard as she picked up his pistol while Chuck scooped up the pistol that Juliette had dropped. Chuck grabbed the key fob that Sarah had slipped into his pocket and held it up, asking the host whether there were any other copies of the files on this?

He tried to bluff it out at first, but changed tack quick smart when Chuck pressed the still warm tip of the suppressor into the same spot as Sullivan had been shot and repeated the question. "Yes, yes, they're on my computer, I'll show you!"

Chuck shook his head. "Are there any copies _other_ than what's on your system at the moment?"

"No, they're the only copies, I swear!"

"What about backups, or off-site backups?"

"The backups are all in the storage silo or my vault, I keep everything in-house for security."

Chuck called Vinnie and Zondra to come help and John and Vinnie carried Sullivan's body and the Fulcrum agent out to the van while Carina and Zondra escorted the host and Chuck and Sarah headed back to his office. As before, Anna and the others kept them from showing up on the security monitors and talked them past the guards. Sarah opened and emptied the vault, desk and cupboards while Chuck got into the computer, killing off all of the decryption processes and deleting anything on the system remotely related to the files before telling Anna to disconnect from the systems and releasing a rather nasty version of malware onto the network to corrupt and destroy absolutely every file attached to any of the systems.

The others brought bags to cart out everything that they'd collected out, and John brought back a rather large bag of thermite charges, along with their weapons and a couple of ballistic vests, just in case they had to shoot their way out of there. When they'd finished in the office, they headed to the computer room with John. They tranqed the sysadmins who were madly running around trying to save the systems and dragged them out of the computer room, then Chuck and John quickly went through and attached thermite charges to every processing and storage device in there, as well as the storage media. Sarah was both amazed and amused by how well they worked together as she watched them, as it was like a practised dance, they never got in each other's way and always seemed to have what the other one wanted ready at just the right moment. She shook her head, thinking that this must be the result of working together so closely for seventeen years.

Chuck smiled evilly as he activated the remote detonator to turn over a million dollars worth of state of the art computer processor and storage hardware and media into piles of worthless metal and plastic slag, then they headed out. As soon as they were clear of the building, Anna destroyed the security systems, much as Chuck had done to the computer systems (minus the thermite charges), after they'd copied everything off the systems, ensuring that there was no real possibility of recovering any images of any of them from the system.

* * *

The others left straight away with the van to deliver the host, the Fulcrum agent and Sullivan's body into the official custody of the local FBI office, so they piled into the stretch limo with the other three who'd been inside as serving staff and headed back to the El Castillo. They had to laugh when they got there, as Carina and Zondra were sitting outside in a Lamborghini (presumably the host's), waiting for someone to let them in. Once they were all inside, they got the story out of them. Carina had gone to recover her key fob from the host's keys because it had sentimental value to her, but when she saw the Lamborghini key she decided that it would be a shame to let such a nice car to go to waste, especially as she just happened to know people who could alter all the records to make it would show up as being her's, so she and Zondra hopped in and drove it home. They were happy to report that it was one sweet ride.

Once they were changed, they all headed down to the Dungeon to contact Di and the DNI to report on the mission. Overall, everyone was happy with the outcome, as they'd recovered all the data before it could be leaked, as well as capturing a senior Fulcrum agent and the one who had been decrypting the files for them, so they were hoping to be able to get quite a bit of information out of the two of them. They didn't _really_ regard Sullivan getting killed like that as a win, but they weren't shedding any tears about it either. He'd been specifically ordered to stay away from their operation, by the DNI no less, and it was the way that he'd stupidly charged in with no plan in a vain grab for glory that got him killed, so they couldn't be blamed for that.

Of course Di and the DNI advised them that Gordon _did_ blame them for Sullivan's death, and that he had even gone so far as to accuse them of killing Sullivan and then doctoring the video he was shown of the shooting when they contacted him right after they got off the link to Los Angeles. The DNI told them that he'd asked why Sullivan hadn't been recalled after the meeting at the Intersect team's base and Gordon had told him that he hadn't thought that it was necessary to do so. They also said that they'd offered to supply copies of the videos for independent analysis to prove that no tampering had occurred, but the man just kept ranting and making accusations against the team, so they gave up.

The DNI _did_ officially request that the team look into the Acting Director of the CIA's history, to find out how the hell someone like that could ever have ended up in a position of authority like that. It didn't take them long to get to the bottom of the matter, as Graham had obviously been grooming the man, promoting him above his ability and covering up all of his indiscretions and messes for at least twenty five years to ensure that he had a puppet on hand who had neither the intelligence or willpower to question anything he was doing. Knowing Graham he would have made sure that he had other, more competent, backups for this one, but the plan for Gordon was obvious when anyone looked at it. He wanted to ensure that he had a puppet who wouldn't ask questions to act as a screen between him and everyone else so that he could do whatever he wanted without anyone working out what he was doing.

They were getting sick of dealing with politicians, because the bastards always had agendas. Even with how catastrophic it would have been if Fulcrum had gotten their hands on the decrypted versions of those files because Gordon had sat on the knowledge that they'd managed to steal the encrypted chip for months in an attempt to stop anyone else moving into what he saw as his territory, and with the DNI's _very_ strong recommendations to get rid of him before the trouble he caused became even more serious, the politicians wouldn't vote to remove him. Because the President was a politician himself, he wasn't prepared to go out on a limb and use his power to force the issue, even though he knew that the DNI was right on this matter.

At least they didn't have to deal with Gordon though, because he _was_ just bright enough to accept that he wasn't likely to get away with going head to head with the DNI too many times. He also knew that someone had pulled his chestnuts out of the fire that time for some reason, but he didn't know whether they'd do it again, so he kept his head down and had the Director of the National Clandestine Service deal with the Intersect team if the CIA had anything that was critical enough to need their assistance.

Gordon often wished that he could afford to get rid of Bentley (though he doubted that he could manage it), because the woman didn't make any attempt to cover up her opinion of him and his lack of competence or qualifications for the job, but he couldn't because she was quite possibly the most effective Director that they'd ever had for the operational side of the CIA, and she was pretty much the main thing that was keeping the CIA operating as an effective organisation.

* * *

Carina was enjoying driving her Lamborghini, which all the records now showed had been her's for years, and in addition to the intel that they took from the vault at the party, the cash and negotiable assets that they'd collected were worth over Forty Million, which would be enough to fund the entire team's operations for a while. They'd also transferred ownership of the man's G550 and most of his ill gotten gains over to Carmichael Industries, as he wouldn't be needing them in whatever black site that he'd be languishing in for the rest of his life and it wasn't as if he'd come by his money legitimately anyway, that was why he was in a federal black site. Once they had the ownership transferred they muddied the trails and then sold off the G550 and everything else they didn't want or need, which netted them another Hundred Million, they didn't need the money but they were still working on the principle of ensuring that the other side didn't have it to advance their plans.

As soon as the dust had settled, Chuck and Sarah flew to DC to have that talk to the DNI, with Auntie Di along to try and smooth over ruffled feathers.

* * *

The meeting started off a little shaky, as the DNI was still understandably a little angry about being lied to about... well pretty much everything, and played for a fool as he saw it, but they answered all his questions and he slowly came around.

That changed again when Chuck presented him with a list of trainee agents that he wanted officially added to the Spectre team…. USN Lieutenant Caitlin Samantha Caine, USA First Lieutenant Benjamin Wayne Johnson, USMC First Lieutenant Alexandra Johanna McHugh, USAF First Lieutenant Josephine Mary Larouche, USN Lieutenant Junior Grade Vivien Leigh Mazur, USA Second Lieutenant Kimberly Eleanora Mills, and USN Ensigns Charlotte Ella Rabi and Charlene Anna Rabi.

The DNI knew Diane well enough to catch the flash of emotion that crossed over her face when the third woman's name was mentioned, and he decided to take the direct approach. "Can you tell me why Chuck is requesting that these young officers be formally added to the team Diane?"

The look she shot at Chuck confused him, as it was almost equal parts anger and gratitude. "I dare say to get everything out in the open with you Mike, you've worked with him for eighteen years so you should know by now that he's always been a couple of steps ahead of most of us. What we have here is the rest of Chuck and Sarah's generation in our family, and the first of the next generation. Lieutenant Caine is Charly Baltimore's daughter, First Lieutenant Johnson is Phoebe Noble And Buck Johnson's grandson, First Lieutenant McHugh is John Casey's daughter, First Lieutenant Larouche is my and Roan's daughter, Lieutenant Junior Grade Mazur is Mary's youngest daughter, Chuck's little sister, Second Lieutenant Mills is Bry's daughter and the two Ensign Rabis are _Chuck's_ daughters."

Of all those, the only thing that wasn't really a shock was the fact that Diane had a daughter, because he suddenly realised that he'd actually helped cover that up.

"That was why you needed help getting that remote posting in California set up in Ninety, wasn't it?"

She nodded. "Josie was conceived when we were in Berlin in late Eighty Nine, so I had to get out of sight for the last few months of my pregnancy and the first couple of months after she was born, and we were setting up the framework for our family's organisation over there as well. I knew that Emma would care for her and raise her well, and more importantly make sure she didn't turn out anything like I did when I was being raised according to the Beckman family's rules... but I also needed to make sure I wasn't seen by anyone connected to the Beckmans or the intelligence community until after she was born."

He shook his head with a laugh. "I'm sorry, it's just that of all the things that I could see Diane Beckman as, a mother was never one of them."

She glared at him, then sighed in resignation and shook her head too. "No, I never really saw myself as a mother either until I was pregnant with Josie Mike, but while her father was…. _is_ , the most infuriating man I've ever met... I was madly in love with him, I still am unfortunately."

Of the people in the room, only Chuck really understood what she was saying, as he was the only one who really knew Uncle Roan, and he gave her a sympathetic smile. She reached over to squeeze his hand gratefully and continued. "I could never consider giving up the baby after I discovered I was pregnant, and when Josie was born, I felt complete. Emma has always made sure she knew who her mother was, even though she and the family in California were the ones who were raising her, and I saw her as often as I could, we both did. I'm afraid that I wasn't very supportive when she decided that she wanted to follow me into an intelligence career, but Emma and my friends, and Chuck and Ellie, made me see that she just wanted to be like me, so I tried to help her along her chosen path after that."

She looked at Sarah with a smile. "She'll be better than I ever was though, she may not get up to your level Honey but working with Mary and your mother and the others over there she's already more than a match for many established agents... I expect that she'll even be able to match her big sister in time..."

She smiled at the DNI's reaction to that. "Oh yes, there's something else I need to tell you Mike, you see the CIA was trying hard to recruit me when I was at Harvard and they sent an agent in to seduce me. While he was incredible in bed I still managed to say no to him, but a couple of months later I found out that I was pregnant. As much of a failure as a human being the one that sired her is, I couldn't bring myself to terminate the pregnancy, but I gave her up for adoption at birth in June Seventy Eight to save both of us the abuse that would have come from the Beckmans. This is where it gets interesting though, you see after Carina Miller was added to the team, Chuck found her original birth certificate in her file in the Intersect and between the intel in the Intersect and some other clues he put together who her real parents were... It turned out that the agent who was sent to seduce me in late Seventy Seven was actually Sarah's father Joe Blake, that was nearly four years before Blake met Emma, but it means that Carina is both Sarah's half sister and cousin..."

"Anyway, the situation for Phoebe and Buck's grandson Benji was similar to Josie's. Phoebe's eldest Wayne Johnson and his wife Zoe Alleyne were both serving officers in the Army in Ninety so they were posted overseas when the Gulf War broke out. At first Benjie was being looked after by Phoebe's mother back east but the new setup in Arcadia had a lot more to offer so at Rocky and Zoe's request we moved Benjie over to be raised by Emma in Arcadia. Zoe asked to be transferred to the Spectre group in Ninety Four after the bill was passed to ban women in combat and I assigned her to the LA operation as soon as she came across so she could be with her son."

"And Robin Cunnings is actually Bry Mills and Pam Landry's daughter, and therefore Sarah's stepsister. Bry went out to tie one on the night before he was being sent back to Vietnam in early Seventy Two and hooked up with Pam. He had disappeared back to Vietnam by the time she found out that she was pregnant and her parents made her give the baby up for adoption when she was born, because Pam was only sixteen, even though she'd convinced Bry she was eighteen. Chuck found Bry's name listed on Robin's birth certificate in Ninety One and after a lot of screaming and yelling they all decided that they were happy to know they had family."

Mike was obviously confused but he nodded and turned to the other two in the room. "So would you care to explain how you can have twin daughters who according to their records are only twelve years younger than you Chuck? And how do you feel about this Sarah?"

Sarah squeezed Chuck's hand and answered for the both of them. "I couldn't be happier Sir..."

Mike held up a hand to stop her. "Call me Mike or Uncle Mike or even Chuck's ridiculous nickname for me, Mister Mickmack, please Sarah! Your Aunt has been pretty much family to my wife and I for nearly thirty five years, and that makes you family too."

Sarah nodded. "Okay... Uncle Mike…. Well as I said, I couldn't be happier. The girls have accepted me as a key part of their father's life, and so have their mothers…."

She laughed at the confused look that last statement generated. "Oh I'm sorry, you don't really know anything about the girls, do you?"

He shook his head and she continued. "Well the girls' biological mother is one of Chuck's two lesbian best friends, and the other is her partner, so the girls effectively have three mothers, Lou, their biological mother, Anna, Lou's partner and me, their step mother. They've also got Ellie, my Mama and a gaggle of other aunts there to help them develop. Auntie Mary, their grandmother, says that the she's better suited to teaching them to be warriors and spies because…."

* * *

She stopped suddenly as she realised she'd been about to blurt out Auntie Mary's biggest secret. Chuck looked a question at Auntie Di, who in turn looked at the DNI thoughtfully before turning back to nod hesitantly. Chuck thought for a moment and then nodded decisively, taking Sarah's hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze as he spoke.

"Because she doesn't believe that she's qualified to teach the girls anything worthwhile outside of that, you see Mom came to the US at sixteen as a KBG sleeper _Uncle_ Mike…. She hasn't seen her birth family since the day she was was taken out of school at the age of six to be raised in something like a cross between a Hitler Youth Camp and a Spetsnaz cum Spy Training Camp in Kuybyshev for the next ten years and then sent to the States to get herself recruited by the CIA from university. Everything was going to plan up until she went into the field, because like my beautiful wife here Mom blitzed everyone else at university and the Farm, setting records right, left and centre. After she left the Farm though, things started changing for her, because for the first time since she was a little girl, she started forming close friendships with her peers, Auntie Di, Uncle Bry and Roan, Auntie Charly and Phoebe and Auntie Em and Uncle Jack…. Uncle Jack was another CIA analyst who was a friend of Auntie Em's, not Sarah's failure of a father. These friendships set Mom up to commit what spies are always told is the ultimate sin, she was assigned to watch and control the hotshot scientist that the CIA had tricked into moving to California to develop cutting edge technology for them, and she fell in love with him. She defected unofficially when she found out that she was pregnant with Ellie and married Dad, because she'd seen what happened to Auntie Sue and knew that the KGB would come after her and her family if she ever made it official, but she's never looked back, not even when she was trapped in Russia with Graham's creation, Alexei Volkoff…."

He snorted at the shocked and disbelieving look the DNI gave him at that. "Oh yeah, you never heard about _that_ either, did you Uncle Mike? I'll get the evidence to you later, but the short version is that the CIA didn't close down Project MKUltra in the early Seventies as they claimed, they just decided that drugs weren't the answer and started investigating other ways to program the human brain. The one assigned to run the program was a new up and coming section head by the name of Langston Graham, because he'd never let anything get in the way of achieving his goals and would have no qualms about doing whatever it took to make sure that they didn't have any more fiascos like the Church Commission or the Commission on CIA Activities within the United States because word of what they were doing leaked out."

"Dad was considered the best and brightest of MIT's alumni at the time, so Graham baited the hook with a hefty research grant, state of the art facilities and access to the best resources in Silicon Valley, that was something that a young and naive scientist like Dad couldn't resist and he took it hook, line and sinker. Graham also assigned him a watcher and assistant who's file said was as ruthless and lethal as she was bright and beautiful, Mom. The problem with that was the fact that Auntie Di and her other friends had managed to humanise Mom, so she went into that assignment as a woman, rather than a killing machine, and she fell in love, which in turn resulted in Ellie and I…." He paused and smiled at Di. "So according to the KGB and CIA, you guys were responsible for ruining the ultimate spy Auntie Di, thank you for that, because you were _also_ responsible for her becoming our Mom."

"Anyway…. Volkoff. After Uncle Joe took Sammie away in November Eighty Nine, Auntie Em went off the reservation to find her and bring her home. Mom would have had a far better chance of finding Sammie at that point but Graham had her locked down in San Francisco with Dad, and Auntie Di, Uncle Roan and Uncle Bry were all stuck in Berlin working on bringing down the East German government, so Auntie Em got desperate and ran off to try and find Sammie herself. Graham ordered Mom to find Auntie Em and bring her back, and he made a number of threats about what would happen to Ellie and I if she didn't, but Mom's got quite a temper and she told him that if he touched any of us she'd destroy his entire world. He knew that she was quite capable of doing that, so to get rid of her and the risk she represented to him and his plans he either forced or coerced Uncle Hartley, that's Hartley Winterbottom, one of the scientists on Dad's team, to load a version of the Agent X program that they'd created as a predecessor of the Intersect."

"What the Agent X program did was overwrite the subject's personality traits and memories with another coded image so that they essentially acquired a completely different persona with different memories. Uncle Hartley had been a test subject for the program before I was born so they knew that it worked, but the problem was that it had turned out to be useless for its intended purpose, because it wasn't possible to code all the skills and knowledge a spy needs to operate effectively into the program at that point, so they could turn an agent into someone else, but they stopped being an agent. That was why they dropped the Agent X program and turned the research to loading usable intel into an agent's head instantly. The Agent X program would work for Graham's plan to get rid of Mom though, so he got one of his people on Dad's team to corrupt the Agent X program so that it wouldn't behave or terminate the way it was supposed to and then forced or coerced Uncle Hartley into loading it and sent him into Russia as Alexei Volkoff. I doubt that Alexei Volkoff was meant to survive the way he has, but what Graham had planned didn't need him to last long."

"Mom must have been having a bad day when Graham came to her and Dad and told them that someone in the CIA had sent Uncle Hartley into Russia as a Russian Mob Boss, but he'd heard that they'd decided that it would be too much work to extract him so they were leaving him there. He _accidentally_ told them where the device to force the Agent X program to terminate was and for some reason Mom swallowed his story. None of us could ever work out why she'd be that stupid, personally I believe that Graham somehow slipped her something to make her more susceptible to believing him, but whatever the reason, Mom grabbed the device and went to Russia to cancel the program and get Uncle Hartley back. Of course Graham didn't leave anything to chance, so as well as having the program sabotaged so that Uncle Hartley was stuck as Alexei Volkoff, he'd tipped Volkoff off that a CIA assassin was coming to kill him, and gave him a doctored version of Mom's file."

"As soon as Mom tried to remove the Agent X program she was captured, and Volkoff raped and tortured her until she managed to get him to confirm with the First Directorate that she was actually a KGB sleeper, but she was pregnant with Viv by then. When he found out that she was pregnant he stopped her terminating the pregnancy and used threats against us, who he knew all about thanks to the file Graham gave him, to keep her under control. She was stuck in Russia with a psychopath, and Dad was swallowing most of what Graham was telling him so he was getting more and more desperate. He was ignoring Ellie and me because he was spending every waking moment working on the Intersect program as he stupidly believed Graham's promises that he would let him go and get Mom out as soon as he finished the Intersect for him. I was a bit of a brat at the time and Ellie and I were always fighting, because she was having just as hard a time with everything as I was and on top of that she was trying to look after me and Dad, even though she'd just turned twelve."

"Anyway, Dad forgot to lock his workroom door one time he came out to get something and I went in to see what was more important than us. There was one station with a pile of monitors racked up above the desk and the main computer screen was flashing the prompt 'Activate?', so in a fit of childish pique I hit 'Enter' and all the screens started flashing images at me. That was the last thing I remembered until I came to with Dad cradling me in his arms and wailing that he'd destroyed his son. What I'd loaded was an early version of the current Intersect, something that had either killed or left every other test subject brain dead. I was fine, and that created a problem, because Dad thought that it meant that this version was safe, so about a month later he loaded it himself, hoping to get the Intersect development finished quicker so that Graham would let him go after Mom. But that version _wasn't_ safe, not for others anyway…. I must have gotten _some_ of what made it safe for me from Dad at least, because it didn't kill him or leave him brain dead like it had everyone else, but it started overloading his brain and he could tell that his mental state was deteriorating rapidly so he called Auntie Di to ask her to look after us and by the time Auntie Sue woke us up in the early hours of the morning he was gone. Auntie Sue got Ellie and I out before Graham could find out that Dad was gone, to look after us as Auntie Di promised Dad and stop him using us against Mom and Dad, and that was what started us down the path that we're on now. Auntie Di got word to Mom that we were all safe, but Volkoff was watching her so closely that she didn't manage to escape until five or six months after Viv was born."

"So what Sarah was upset about was the fact that she almost let slip that Mom came to America and joined the CIA as a KGB sleeper, but she stopped being a sleeper when she became a wife and mother nearly thirty one years ago….." He stopped and looked a question at Auntie Di at that and after a while she nodded.

"There's something else you should know Mike, you see Mary isn't the only turned KGB sleeper we have in our group….. We've actually got quite a few who came over after the Soviet Union fell, but Roan was raised in the same spy camps Mary was and sent over here as a teenager to use our universities to get into the intelligence community too. It was more free love than true love that made him defect though, he dove right into the free love culture here when he arrived and decided to forget about Mother Russia until he got a visit from some of the faithful to remind him of his obligations at the end of the Vietnam War. He took the prudent path and did as he was told then but he never paid more than lip service to being a double agent, he sent just enough inconsequential information back to get them to leave him alone. You'd never believe it to look at him, but Roan's at least on par with Bry and our better spec ops people when it comes to combat, not Mary, Ellie or these two though, they're on a whole 'nother level! His performance in the short time he served in Vietnam was impressive enough for him to earn far more decorations and promotions than most over there, which was the reason he got that visit actually, to make sure that he accepted the offer that they knew was coming for him to join the CIA. I investigated him when I became interested in him in the early Eighties and found enough inconsistencies in his background to confront him about it. It was embarrassing how easily he disarmed me, but then he handed my gun back and sat me down to explain… I think I fell for him that day and no matter what, I keep going back to him..."

"Charly Baltimore was another product of the KGB's spy camps and sleeper program. She defected for her daughter Katy's sake when we were helping her recover after she was burned in Eighty Eight. Charly thought that she was in love with Katy's father too, but as Mary says, their upbringing didn't prepare them for human emotions, and Katy's father was a real bastard... thankfully he's a _dead_ bastard now. He had her set up to be killed on an assignment after she told him she was carrying their baby because a family would have interfered with his ambitions, you see Timothy was pretty much a younger white version of Langston Graham. It took us nearly a year to find Charly after she was burned because she washed up on the New Jersey shores as a pregnant amnesiac in early Eighty Eight, and it was only pure luck that one of us spotted her on a puff piece about small town Christmas celebrations later that year and we went in to extract her and help her recover. Like Josie and Benjie, Katy was largely raised by Emma, Sue, Mary and Ellie with Chuck and Lexie as a big brother and sister because Charly has been one of the main movers and shakers in our group so she's always on the move, and the schools in Arcadia are among the best we have, that's why we relocated Ellie and Chuck there."

"And Sue Lee was another sleeper who was raised in one of those spy camps, but she was with the Chinese Ministry of Public Security. She was taken away at Five to be raised in the spy camps but she had always been held in suspicion by the true believers because her mother was white, so she worked three or four times as hard as any of their other spies to prove herself, which meant that she probably came closer to Mary's ability than the rest of us back in the day. She gave in to her superiors' pressure and seduced and got pregnant to a promising young Rangers Lieutenant with connections to the CIA in Vietnam in early Nineteen Sixty Six so that he'd take her back to the United States with him. It was Buck Johnson she was sent to seduce when she was barely Sixteen though so when she came to him six months later obviously pregnant he got her sent home to the States so that she and the baby would be safe. The problem with Ministry's plan was that Buck is just too good a man to screw over like that, so Su Li came clean to him, and then defected when Buck came home and she was burned by the Ministry because of that. We had to give Su and their daughter Bai new identities and hide them from the Chinese then because they sent a hit squad after them, we made them Sue and Diane Norwood to throw off anyone who was looking for a Chinese woman and child. Sue was the reason that Ellie and Chuck and Sarah are so good with the Chinese languages and dialects and martial arts by the way, because we set her up in the next street and engineered a situation for her to meet and become friends with Mary. She and her daughter were at the Jaworskis' quite a bit because her husband was supposedly away in the Army, and she started teaching the kids Chinese and martial arts when they were toddlers. Sue was working with us from the start as well, as has her daughter Bai. Bai got burned as well in Ninety Two because the FBI found out that she'd been hiding the fact that her mother came to America as a Chinese sleeper and she had a daughter, so we changed her name back to Lee because there were enough Chinese in Los Angeles that no-one would notice another woman called Lee, but Lexie had her father's surname and Bai had listed Diane Lee as her mother's name so she stayed as Alexis White. We relocated Sue and Lexie to Arcadia a few weeks after Emma, Ellie and Chuck, and Sue became Sue Posey because Buck was posing as her husband and he became Posey after he was crucified for Grenada. Bai is Rocky Johnson's older half sister, so Lexie is Benji's first cousin. Lexie works for me, and I can tell you that it was a relief when she got into twenties without becoming a mother, because Sue had Bai when she was Sixteen and Bai was Eighteen when Lexie was born, so we were half expecting Lexie to be pregnant at Eighteen too, but she was too serious about her career to fall into that trap..." She snorted. "Or maybe she heard about the screaming match we had when Bai disappeared right after she graduated from Stanford and didn't come back until it was too late to terminate the pregnancy... After being made a grandmother at Thirty Four Sue was grateful that Lexie _didn't_ make her a great grandmother in her early Fifties..."

"Speaking of grandparents, Lexie and Benjie are actually fourth generation intelligence operatives because Buck and Phoebe's fathers served together for over twenty years in the OSS, OPC and DDP. Sergeant Moses Noble was one of the coloured soldiers selected to serve in the black volunteer platoons in the Battle of the Bulge, and his commanding officer there was First Lieutenant Morris Johnson. The two Moes, as the newspapers called them at the time, were the only two survivors of the engagement where they managed to hold a critical pass against hundreds of Waffen SS troops for over a day, which gave reinforcements time to get there and drive back the Germans. The big brass announced that First Lieutenant Johnson was being promoted to Major and awarded the Medal of Honor for this impressive victory, because he'd identified a serious hole in their defences and took his platoon to plug that hole and hold the position against vastly superior numbers, but Moe was almost demoted and thrown out of the Army at that point because he categorically refused to accept any awards unless Sergeant Noble was properly recognised for his contribution as well. The big brass didn't appreciate being told what to do by a junior officer, especially when he was demanding that they recognise a _nigger_ , but the press heard what the young hero had said and reported it back to the States before the brass could hush it up so they were forced to recognise _both_ heroes. Under orders from the President's office, Sergeant Noble was given a battlefield commission to Second Lieutenant and awarded the Silver Star and Lieutenant Johnson got his Medal of Honor and promotion to Major, but they were looking like either spending the rest of the war shuffling paper in some dark and dusty back office or being sent out on a suicide mission to get rid of them until Bill Donovan grabbed them for the OSS. Donovan had read Moe Johnson's report of how Sergeant Noble had identified the threat of the Germans getting through that little known pass and attacking their forces from the rear and there had been no time to get approval so he took his platoon to plug the hole, just in time because they'd hardly finished digging in before the Germans arrived. Having the insight to identify a threat like that, taking the initiative to address the problem rather than waste time trying to get their superiors to recognise the threat and having the courage, tenacity and tactical intelligence to be able to hold the position against vastly superior forces as they did made the two Moes the type of men Donovan wanted in the OSS, so they escaped whatever fate the big brass was planning for them. When the OSS was disbanded in October Forty Five though, Moses Noble was transferred straight back to his previous company and promptly given a blue discharge, which was the start of three years of struggle for him and his new family as the semi dishonourable discharge made it impossible for him to get a decent job. Morris Johnson was transferred to the Rangers when the OSS was disbanded, then in June Forty Eight he was tapped to join the new Office of Policy Coordination, and he used Moe Noble's OSS records to convince them to take him as well so that the two Moes were back together..."

"Things went okay for the next two decades, neither of them were really comfortable with some of the things they were doing but they were patriots who believed they were serving their country and they served with distinction. That changed when Moses Noble was killed in the Sixty Six Ghana coup, the local Station Chief had been warned to keep his people out of it but he claimed that he'd needed first hand reports of what happened so he sent Noble to observe and report on the key strikes. His explanation in the report he sent back in response to the query about why his agent had been sent into a dangerous situation like that was that the information had been more important than one nigger's life, and it wouldn't have been a problem if he had been a real agent. No-one bothered questioning why the Moses was sent when they had two white and presumably more competent agents at the station, or what specific information Moses was supposed to be getting that they couldn't have gotten from other sources. The fact was that the Station Chief was a redneck retard who was intimidated by having a black agent in his station who was far more intelligent and competent than he was, and a war hero to boot, so he set him up to be killed.

Moe Johnson took in Moses' wife and daughter after that because the two families had been close since the war, and Sue and Phoebe became friends six months later when Buck sent Sue home to the States for her and the baby's protection. Moe tried to talk Phoebe out of joining the Agency when she finished university a few years later, reminding her that her father had been killed working for them and he'd promised Moe to look after his little girl, but she was determined to find out what really happened to her father and had decided that she could only do that from the inside... Phoebe's so stubborn, once she decides to do something there's no stopping her..."

Chuck snorted at that. "Excuse me Auntie Pot, but did you just call Auntie Kettle black?"

They all burst out laughing and Di fixed him with a mock glare. "That's enough out of you my boy! I can still hire someone to put you over their knee you know!"

The glare she directed at Mike when he snorted and muttered "Good luck with that!" was more genuine, as her godson didn't need any encouragement.

"Where was I before I was so rudely interrupted? Oh yes... So Phoebe joined the agency and sure enough, they sent her straight into danger in Vietnam. Moe made Buck promise to look out for her over there but he would have done that even if they hadn't grown up as friends. Buck earned an impression collection of medals and more promotions than most over there getting her out of trouble, so he left the war as a Major at Twenty Eight. Rocky was conceived when they were off their faces celebrating the fact that they'd gotten out of one of those scrapes alive and Moe used what pull he had in the Agency to get her extracted to the States when he found out that she was pregnant, he didn't find out that it was with his grandson until Rocky was born and Phoebe gave him his father's surname at Buck's request. Then Moe was killed in Argentina in Seventy Seven when he tried to stop the Junta's wanton slaughter of anyone who spoke out against them... So what I'm saying is that Lexie and Benjie are fourth generation operatives who come from a family that has been in the business for over sixty years."

She paused and looked at her niece before turning back to Mike.

"And I didn't tell you the whole truth about Sammie's grandfather either Mike... You see he wasn't only recognised as a hero in the Vietnam War, Piotr Burdon was a Polish war orphan in World War Two, but he had come to the attention of the NKGB because after he was forced to watch his parents and others in their village being slaughtered by the Waffen SS, he worked out on his own how to create explosives and build bombs out of materials he could get his hands on and then used the fact that most people ignored children to get into German military installations, plant those bombs and blow them up. Piotr was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union and Order of Lenin at the age of nine for the damage he did to the German war machine in Poland and the NKGB took him back to Kuybyshev after the war to train him as part of the next generation of Soviet spies in the predecessor of the camps that Mary, Roan and Charly were raised in. As you know, the NKGB became the MGB after the war and the KGB in Fifty Four, so Mary, Roan, Charly and Piotr were all essentially part of the same program. Piotr was a genius, so in the early Fifties he was sent to the States as _Peter_ Burdon to study at MIT, the plan was for him to get into the US nuclear program to acquire intel on our nuclear developments for the Soviet Union but the mandatory ROTC requirements exposed his exceptional abilities as a soldier, and that got him dragged into the Army and then Special Forces, and as I said he died being a hero again in Vietnam in Fifty Seven. Our mother had told Emma enough about who her father really was when she was drunk to whet her appetite, so after she was recruited by the CIA Emma used the CIA's resources to find out more about him, and our computer genius here dug a lot more about him out of the GRU's and SVR's systems, so her family has been in the business for sixty years as well. Sammie's name is partly a tribute to her grandfather, because Samara was the original name of Kuybyshev, and it's gone back to that now, but it was more that Emma thought that it suited her beautiful daughter because it was pretty, something that I've always agreed with."

* * *

When Mike's shock at that news had worn off enough for him to register what was being said, Chuck started talking again.

"So yes, the girls, Lou and Anna all love Sarah and she loves them, but as for how I came to have twin daughters before I turned twelve…. When Ellie and I were relocated to Arcadia with Auntie Em we were given new identities that had been made a couple of years older with our birthdays shifted a few months to make it harder for Graham, Volkoff and everyone else to find us. That meant that I was actually eight when I started school in Arcadia but as far as everyone else knew I was eleven. I made three great friends in Middle School, Anna, Lou and Skip, we're compatible in nearly every way except for sexually, which we discovered when the girls' hormones kicked in as they were becoming women heading into their teens. Anna and Lou mean a lot to me and Mom, Auntie Em, Auntie Sue, Auntie Di, Bai and Uncle Roan had taught Ellie and me that sex was just a natural function of the human body, so I agreed when they wanted to experiment with sex. It was fun for all of us but it didn't really mean anything, for me it was the fact that I was still looking for the one I missed the most…." He lifted Sarah's hand to give it a kiss at that.

"And the girls realised that the spark was missing when they were with me, but they tried with each other and found that spark and we were all happy for it to be that way, up until Lou suddenly disappeared without a word and when we looked into it we found out that her entire family had emigrated to Israel. Both Anna and I thought that Lou had run off because of the sex we had together and we were upset that she chose to run off rather than tell us that it wasn't what she wanted, but that wasn't it at all, you see Lou had gotten pregnant when we were together and when her father found out he moved on what he'd been planning in secret, to take the entire family to Israel to get them away from the immoral ways of Americans. Finding out that his thirteen year old daughter was pregnant just made him all the more determined that America wasn't the place for a good orthodox Jewish family and he sent the rest of the family away that night. Anyway, Skip also discovered that he was gay when his hormones started kicking in the next year and he got beaten up a few times for it, so when another girl joined our little group and she and Anna hooked up, Anna came up with the idea for me to pretend to be her boyfriend and Skip to be Jill's boyfriend in public to protect them from homophobic attacks. Anna knew me better than anyone but Ellie, so she knew that I'd never find anyone to replace Sammie in my heart, and us supposedly being boyfriend and girlfriend would also help protect me from most other girls who may decide to set their caps for me, so that's the way it was until Anna, Jill and I went to Stanford. When we got there, Anna asked me to pretend to be Jill's boyfriend instead of her's to keep the jocks off of her. Skip went to UCLA with Ellie though, so that was why I got stuck with Bryce Fucking Larkin as a room mate."

"The twins were born about six months after Lou's family moved to Israel and Lou's mother stood up to her father so that Lou got to name them herself, that's why they both ended up being named after their father. Towards the end of our time at Stanford, the CIA's recruiter there, Fleming, tested all of his students for subliminal imagery retention capabilities and I got over ninety eight percent in the test. That was why Larkin had me framed for cheating and expelled, so that they could send my test results to the CIA with his name on them and he could get all the fame and glory that Fleming described. The idiot didn't understand that if they _had_ loaded the Intersect into him, he would have almost certainly ended up dead, or at least brain dead. But that was also when Fulcrum came out of the woodwork, you see a family friend of Jill's had organised for her way to be paid through Stanford, and when their spies inside the CIA told them that Larkin got an almost perfect score in the subliminal imagery tests that family friend came to Stanford to call in their marker, telling Jill that she had to dump me and seduce Larkin into coming over to them. She did that, but she got pregnant in the process and disappeared after we returned to LA, but the fact that I'd had sex with Lou and Anna just before Lou disappeared had come out when we were trying to prepare Jill for what she'd have to do with Larkin and that made Auntie Di suspicious..."

He snorted and looked from Auntie Di to the DNI. "Well _more_ suspicious, if you've known Auntie Di for thirty five years you must know by now that being suspicious is hard wired into her." Everyone laughed at that, even Di, and he went on.

"So she used her and Mom's connections in Israel to check up on Lou and found out that she'd had twin baby girls six months after the family arrived in Israel. She and Mom went over to talk to Lou, and got their heads chewed off for even thinking for a minute that the girls shouldn't have a chance to get to know their father. It took months to get through all the red tape, because Lou's father was trying to stop her taking the girls out of Israel and the world was in an uproar after Nine Eleven, but they came home to LA with Lou's mother at Christmas Two Thousand and we've been one big happy family ever since." He put his arm around Sarah and gave her a squeeze. "And then this one walked back into our lives last September so now I'm complete."

Chuck looked at the DNI. "My girls may only be fifteen at the moment, but their mother is a genius who was a very capable soldier in Israel and they have the blood of Frost and Orion running through their veins from me, they've also been trained by the best, just like Sarah, Ellie and I were, so they're more than a match for most so called adults as operatives _or_ analysts. _All_ of these girls are and so is Benjie, this isn't an exercise in nepotism Sir, we're just looking to formalise the places they've already rightfully earned in our organisation…. And show _you_ the respect of letting you understand who we are."

The DNI looked him in the eye and nodded solemnly. "Thank you Admiral, I do appreciate that."

* * *

 **A/N: I know I promised that Daddy Douche would be getting his in this chapter, but the family history ran a lot longer than I planned, sorry.**


	17. Hello Darlin'

**Short, but definitely** ** _not_** **sweet. This one isn't for people with delicate sensibilities, so if that's you, you'd probably be better off skipping it. You won't really miss anything in the overall story line if you do, as its main significance is to close off an open Graham related story arc and see to it that a character I didn't really like gets his just deserts.**

 **There have been a few more minor changes to the background over the last 3-4 weeks to close holes that were bugging me. Once again, they don't really change the story line at all, the ones most likely to noticed are that Thebes Security is now Cinders Security…. Josie and Katy were raised in Arcadia with Ellie and Chuck to give them a better upbringing…. They've had an F-111A since 91 so that Di could get to see more of Josie after she had to move to DC in late 91 to manage the Special Project Group's interfaces with military and intelligence bodies…. There are three more KGB sleepers in the family, including Sarah's long dead grandfather…. Lou's father is a fanatically over the top born again ultra-orthodox Jew so Lou, the girls, her mother and her brothers' surnames have all been changed to Lou's mother's maiden name of Rabi and her brothers are in charge of Emerald City in Israel….. And they've turned Volkoff's re-imaging of the Mil V-12 heavy lift helicopter into a really big tilt rotor. Most of the changes are in Chapters 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be a few changes in the first hour or so as I tend to fix things that don't look quite right to me in the final form.**

* * *

A few weeks after they had their meeting with 'Uncle Mike', Sarah was talking to Chuck in her office (not an unusual occurrence) when her mobile phone rang, coming up as an unknown number. She frowned as she looked up at Chuck, as he'd made sure that that phone was the epitome of unlisted numbers, he'd used his prodigious abilities to ensure that any record of it had been scrubbed from any and every on-line system in the world. What that meant was that there were only a handful of people outside of the family who should have that number, and neither of them could think of any reason for any of them to be using an unknown number, so she answered it on speaker "Hello?"

They both recognised the voice saying "Hello Darlin', how are ya?" and Sarah froze, so Chuck leant over to hit the button to secure the office, then squeezed her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek to bring her back. She looked up at him gratefully and pulled him in for a kiss for strength before she answered. "How did you get this number Dad?"

"That's the greeting I get after ten years? After everything I've done for you? I'm disappointed Darlin', I thought I raised you better than that."

" _Raised_ me? Is that what you call dragging me through the worst cesspits in North America and Mexico for eight years so that you could use me for your cons? If so we have _very_ different interpretations of what raising a child is Dad! Now, for the last time before I hang up and never speak to you again... How. Did. You. Get. This. Number?"

"That's no way to speak to your father!"

"Goodbye Dad!"

"No, wait! A guy who came to see me just before I was released gave it to me."

"Who was he, and why would he give you my number?"

"I don't know his name! It was one of the Feebs who arrested me in San Diego, he said that he gave me the number so I could talk to you because I'm not allowed to see you, or anyone else I know from the business, but I need to see you Darlin', it's been ten years since I've seen my little girl."

"Describe him!"

"About six and a half feet tall, black, a bit older than me but in good shape."

Sarah and Chuck looked at each other, that _had_ to be Graham. Chuck hit the 'Mute' button on Sarah's phone. "Why would Graham spring your father and give him your number?"

She frowned. "It must have been some sort of plan to try and get me back under his control... Set up a family reunion to try and get me to forgive the bastard so that we bond, and then arrest him again so he could hold him over my head to try and make me do what he wanted."

Chuck nodded and smiled, impressed yet again with the woman he loved as she had put that together faster than he did. Sarah saw what was going through his head and smiled up at him. She knew that Chuck loved her as much for her intelligence as he did for her beauty, but seeing yet another confirmation of that made her love him all the more. Sarah dragged him down for a searing kiss to show him just how much she loved him at that moment, and because _she_ needed it to give her the strength to deal the bastard who was on the phone at the moment, and who was interrupting their kiss by trying to get her attention.

"Darlin'? Darlin'? Are you there?"

She gave a frustrated sigh as she hit the 'Mute' button again and snapped. " _What?_ "

"I thought you'd gone."

"Not yet, unfortunately! Why did you call me Dad?"

"It's been ten years, I've missed you and I need to see you, I need to make things right."

Sarah looked up at Chuck with a raised eyebrow, but he just waved to her to indicate that it was her choice and he'd support whatever she decided to do. She smiled at him and kissed his hand, which she was still holding, he always knew and gave her just what she needed.

She didn't want to have to deal with her father but she needed to find out what he was up to, and she also had to get rid of him for good one way or the other so they weren't looking over their shoulders and he didn't lead anyone to them... after what seemed like an age to her but was only a few seconds she reached a decision.

"Alright Dad, I'll see you, when and where do you want to meet me?"

"How about dinner tonight, the Marriot at seven?"

"OK, but my boyfriend will be coming with me."

"No Darlin', I need to talk to you alone!"

"If you want to see me, that's my terms, we're a package deal!"

"But I need to speak to you _alone_ Darlin'."

"What part of 'that's my terms' don't you fucking understand? I'm not negotiating with you, I'm _telling_ you, it's both of us or nothing!"

"I guess I'll have to let you bring your schnook then, but I really _do_ need to talk to you in private Darlin', there are things that can't be said in front of other people."

" _LET_ me? Didn't I just tell you that this _wasn't_ a negotiation? Forget it Dad, there's no way I'm going to make Charlie wait around while I go off and talk to you in private when I don't want to talk to you at all!"

She drew a breath to compose herself. "You know what? I really _don't_ want to talk to you, so goodbye Dad, _don't_ call me again!"

"No! Wait! Wait... I'm sorry Darlin', I guess I'm still thinking of you as my little girl who was happiest when it was just you and me. I'll do it on your terms, Okay? I just need to see my little girl!"

She looked at Chuck, knowing that his position would still be that it was purely her choice, but she really just had to draw strength from her wonderful husband. "OK, we'll see you there at seven."

Jack must have somehow fooled himself into thinking that he had the situation under control, because his next words were. "So, who is this 'Charlie' anyway Darlin'? Some schnook that you're working?"

Even he could recognise that he was on thin ice from her tone when she replied. "No, I just told you that he's my _boyfriend_ , I gave that game away after you got yourself arrested. I put _everything_ associated with you behind me as soon as I got away from you. Look, forget it, you're just going to aggravate me more if I see you."

"No, please Darlin'? I need see you!"

She left him hanging for a few minutes and then said. "Alright. We'll see you at seven... but if you piss me off even a little bit we're gone. And by the way Dad, _you're_ paying! Charlie will try and insist on paying for us but you will _not_ let him, do you understand?"

"Yes Darlin', I understand, I'm paying."

"Right, we'll see you then. Wait! What name are you using?"

"Jack Burton"

"Well I suppose it's a good thing that I had to keep using Jenny Burton then isn't it? Goodbye Dad."

And with that she cut the link.

She shook her head angrily. "That idiot is going to try to use me to get close enough to work you! Graham must have told him that you're some rich mark that I'm working, _arrgghhh!_ "

Sarah stood up and wrapped her arms around Chuck's neck. "I need to get him, both of them, out of my head, take me to bed and lose me forever Honey!"

He gave her a squeeze and kissed her, but the nerd in him couldn't let that go. "Baby, that's not the way that quote…."

"I know Chuck! Shut up, please? I just need you to make me forget about all this shit for a while."

He just kissed her and led her into the bathroom shared between their offices, where the small private elevator up to the Keep was.

* * *

Mostly, what they did upstairs was just hold each other as Chuck kissed Sarah's cares away, but she was feeling much better by the time they came back down to call a meeting with everyone else a couple of hours later.

When she heard that Joe Blake was back and he was trying to interfere in Sarah's, and Chuck's, lives again, Mary's immediate response was to jump up, preparing to rush down there and end the miserable bastard once and for all. Carina and Zondra were also on their feet, ready to join her, because Sarah had told them enough stories about what her father had put her through for them to be determined to make sure that that bastard wasn't going to get to hurt their girl any more either. Chuck had been prepared for this though, and he'd sealed the room so that only he could unlock it, to make them all listen to what they had planned.

When they'd settled down a little, they started listening. The others were set aback when Chuck brought up the issue that they didn't know for sure that this wasn't still a CIA operation, and therefore they had to be prepared in case this was an attempt to grab Sarah, as they hadn't considered that possibility. A few of the others were commenting that surely he wouldn't be involved in setting up his own daughter like that, but they were shocked and chilled by Emma's response, in a cold, hard, hateful voice that none of them would have ever expected to come from sweet, kind Emma.

"Yes, he would! He never wanted her, as far as he was concerned Sammie was just an unwanted by-product of the sex which was all he was after when he sweet talked me into having a baby. From the day she was born, Sammie was nothing more to him than something to be used to get what he wanted, so if he thought that he could gain some benefit for himself by selling my baby out to the CIA or anyone else, he'd do it without a second thought!"

She started crying then and Chuck immediately pushed Sarah to go to her, she shot him a look of love and devotion and quickly stretched up on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek before rushing to her mother's side, thinking. 'That's my man!'

Chuck followed a little behind, enfolding the two of them in an embrace, and Emma stretched up on tiptoe to gratefully kiss her son in law on the cheek too, as she'd caught his immediate reaction when she broke down.

When she'd recovered a little, Chuck kissed both of them on the head and laid out the plan, the restaurant at the Marriot was only lightly booked that night, or it had been before he inserted bookings for five more parties. Anna insisted on being part of the action there because she was part of this family and people she loved were at risk, so she, Di, Rick and Ellie were on one table. Di was the only one of the original team that Jack wouldn't recognise because he never met her. It was even risky having Ellie there because she was obviously Mary's daughter, but she was even more adamant than Anna about being there to do her part if necessary.

They agreed all the details, everyone inside would be there, armed and wearing as much body armour as they could hide under their clothes. Mary and Emma would be outside in the vans with Jeff, Pete and Skip for technical support and the rest of the Cinders Security team in case backup was needed.

* * *

When they were getting ready in the Keep, Sarah picked up Chuck's long barrel Glock 20 to hand to him but paused as she remembered. "That's something I've been meaning to ask you about for a while now, why do you guys always carry these cannons? You use the Ten Millimetre Auto versions of the MP Fives too."

He kissed her cheek as he took the pistol and tucked it into the back of the waistband of his trousers, slipping the spare magazines into his pocket before picking up the Glock 29 in its ankle holster to strap it on as he explained. "We've been working with the FBI's HRT and SWAT teams on and off for most of the time we've been working together and they've been using Ten Millimetre Auto for twenty years now. The Ten Millimetre Auto gives us much more stopping power, penetration and range than Nine Millimetre does, and as it's often been just a few of us on operations against god knows how many, we decided a long time ago to go with whatever gave us the best advantage. If we can, we'll use the AS VALs rather than the MP Five Tens for the same reason. The Ten Millimetre Auto cartridges can be loaded for anything from light rifle rounds down to subsonic rounds like the Forty S and W that you often go with uses, so it gives us a lot more flexibility too. Actually the Forty S and W was developed from the Ten Millimetre Auto Lite load that they came up with for the FBI's people who were finding the Ten Millimetre Auto too powerful. As you've seen, we do use the Forty S and Ws as well, especially for backup guns, but for our primary handguns we prefer to carry the Ten Millimetre Autos when we can."

He could see that he had her intrigued now, and smiled as he knew that she'd be trying out the Glock 20s and other 10 MM Auto weapons down in urban combat range in the near future. She grinned and punched him in the shoulder when she saw that smile because she knew that he'd picked up on what was going through her mind.

They took what most would have regarded to be a convoluted path to get the the garage, but it was actually the quickest way to get there, as they took their private elevator straight down to the Dungeon, then walked down to the lift at the garage end to get back up to the ground floor. In the garage they looked at the cars as they discussed their options. "Your father's bound to be watching to see what we arrive in to try and get an idea of my financial status."

Sarah nodded. "So, do we go with a limo or something fast and flashy?"

Sarah grinned "I'm in the mood for something fast and flashy!" then she frowned "But if I _was_ working you, I'd be the passenger, cooing at you and stroking your ego, so you'll have to drive..."

She wasn't at all happy about that, because she loved to drive fast cars, and the collection of machines they had there was like candy to someone like her. "I haven't even seen the bastard yet and he's already pissing me off!"

Chuck just whispered "Sorry" as he leant in to kiss her. He decided to go with the SL 65 AMG again, as it was one of his current favourites that he'd had built to his specs by one of the better tuners in Germany, and grabbing the keys, led her over to open her door and hand her into the car.

They both saw Jack scuttling away as they pulled up to the front doors of the Marriot. He would have recognised Sarah as soon as he saw her because there was no mistaking that she was Emma's daughter in her natural look. Chuck jumped out and stopped the doorman about to open Sarah's door with a look as he came around to do that and hand her out of the car himself. Sarah smiled and kissed him on the cheek, knowing that that wouldn't have been for Jack even if he'd still been there watching, that was just her Chuck being himself. Chuck fixed the valet with a look much like the one he'd used the night they took Sasha Banacheck down, making sure he understood what would happen to him if there was a single scratch on this car when he got it back.

* * *

As they were walking in arm in arm, they quietly asked the ones in the van whether they were hearing any chatter to indicate that this might be a trap, and were relieved to hear them say 'no'.

They both snorted at Emma's disgusted tone when she muttered "You've _got_ to be kidding me!" as she watched the image of Jack hustling up in an Armani suit, pretending that he was late because he was coming straight from an important meeting, on the feed from the cameras and mics that the two of them were wearing in the van.

Jack obviously still lived by the same 'fake it until you make it' rules he always had, and he'd obviously pulled some cons on the way to Los Angeles to get the money for that suit. Sarah smiled to herself as she thought that he didn't wear it anywhere near as naturally as Chuck wore his, but then Chuck wore this type of thing most of the time as Charles Carmichael and his was just part of his normal workaday wardrobe, whereas she had to fight the urge to check whether her father's still had the tags in it.

Emma showed just how well she knew her daughter when she said "Samara! Behave!" in an amused voice and Chuck bent down to kiss Sarah, to both cover up their laughter and whisper into the mic "Stop it you two, we need to pull this off!" as Mary was laughing with Emma in the van.

They only just managed to keep straight faces as Jack came out with the expected line. "I thought I was going to have to call you and tell you I'd be late because my last meeting ran over!"

Sarah had to rein herself in when Jack tried the power move of pretending to get the name they gave him for Chuck, 'Charlie Hunter', wrong and called him 'Harry', as if he were too important to remember it. She smiled to herself when Chuck turned it back on him and called him 'Jock', because her father didn't like that at _all_! They heard their mothers snickering about that too, but they didn't say anything this time.

When they reached the restaurant, Chuck and Sarah's eyes surreptitiously swept the tables and they picked up the minuscule head shakes from Ellie, Casey, Carina, Zondra and the others to say that they hadn't picked up on anything untoward in the restaurant. Feeling a little more comfortable about that, Chuck pulled Sarah's chair out to seat her, manoeuvring things to ensure that they could both watch the entrances, while Jack sat himself down without waiting.

It was amusing Sarah, those watching (both in the van and in the restaurant) _and_ the waiters as Chuck kept consulting Sarah and then correcting Jack's choices of wine and the like for them, telling the waiters that he and Sarah would prefer items more to their tastes than the most expensive choices that Jack kept trying to order for the whole table (in another attempt at a power move). Jack wasn't an entirely clueless conman and he picked up on the obvious respect being shown in the responses of the waiters to 'Charlie's corrections, so he backed off on the power moves a little as he realised that that Feeb had been right, this guy obviously _was_ rich and powerful, so trying to one up him in his world would be a fool's game.

Jack changed tacks then, launching into a series of anecdotes about the wonderful and exciting time 'Jenny' had had growing up on the road, but he was ignoring his daughter as he focussed on selling the story to Chuck, as he was confident that she wouldn't risk outing herself by contradicting him, so he missed the fact that he was just getting himself ever further into the shit. Chuck was pretending to enjoy the stories and build a rapport with Jack, but he was getting angry as he watched Sarah getting more and more upset until she slammed her cutlery down and spat out.

"Oh yeah Dad, that was a _wonderful_ time for me! I really enjoyed having all those dirty old men trying to get their hands into my pants from before I was eight, squeezing my bottom all the time, and my breasts too as soon as they started to become noticeable. And I just _loved_ the way they all kept trying to get me to come back to their rooms with them to give me a _present_! The only one who was having a good time back then was _you_ , so drop the act and tell me what the hell you're here for!"

He actually did a surprisingly credible job of pretending to look shocked. "Darlin' you should have told me, I _never_ would have let that happen to you if I'd known!"

"Don't you fucking _dare_ pretend that you didn't know what was going on! The only reason you took me to half those places was use me as bait to try and entice those perverts into working with you on your cons, you knew _exactly_ what they were doing and what's more you _encouraged_ it! Some of them actually told me what you'd promised them in an attempt to get me to stop hurting them for what they tried to do to me! Didn't you ever wonder why so many of them suddenly disappeared? It was because they knew that I'd kill them if I ever saw them again... and I _did_ kill some of them because they wouldn't stop!"

They could hear a chorus of growls over their earwigs, and the sounds of a scuffle from the van as some of the others were obviously trying to restrain Mary from coming up there to kill the bastard in the middle of the restaurant. They also heard Emma's heartbroken sobbing as she heard what her baby had been forced to endure when she wasn't there to protect her. Chuck's glass shattered as he'd squeezed too hard as he fought to restrain himself from leaping over the table and finishing the bastard then and there, but he just dropped the remains on the table and calmly dried his hand with his napkin. He held up a hand to stop the others without bothering to glance in their direction as he tried to comfort Sarah. When she'd managed to get herself under control she kissed him again, whispering "I love you!" before she turned back to her father.

The look of love and wonder she'd been directing at Chuck was replaced with rage and revulsion as she addressed her father. "I told you to tell me what the fuck you're here for!"

Jack realised that it would be a waste of time to try and play the game any more so he leant forward and spoke to his daughter harshly in Polish. " _You want to know why I am here? I am here to get what you owe me! I_ _was made to_ _spen_ _d_ _over ten years in that prison, having terrible things done to me! YOU caused this_ _by_ _insist_ _ing_ _on stopping in one place_ _s_ _o_ _you could_ _finish_ _High S_ _chool,_ _all_ _because you had_ _some_ _stupid idea_ _of_ _going to university! I need money to get myself set up again,_ _and_ _you will_ _be_ _get_ _ting_ _that money for me from HIM…._ _Four… no... EIGHT! M_ _illion, and_ _afterwards_ _you will_ _be_ _com_ _ing_ _with me and_ _you will do whatever I tell you to_ _. This new look you have_ _is good_ _,_ _i_ _t will make it eas_ _ier_ _to separate men from their money,_ _even more so after you have satisfied them_ _. Do not look at me like that! You will do_ _EXACTLY_ _as I say or I will tell this one things about you that will make him wish that he never_ _met_ _you!"_

He froze and shut up at that point because Chuck had driven a steak knife through the table top, right between his fingers. At first he didn't realise that Chuck was also speaking in Polish, possibly because he was frantically checking to see whether he still had all of his fingers. " _You really are stupid Uncle J_ _oe_ _! You were so tied up in your pathetic little scheme_ _s_ _to play me that you didn't_ _even_ _recognise me!_ _Even though everyone tells me I have Mom's face and you knew that Dad was known as Orion, the Hunter, and_ _we used a name as obvious as Charlie Hunter!…."_

 _"Maybe I should_ _just call downstairs and get_ _them to let Mom go_ _so that she can_ _come up here_ _and_ _do what she's been wanting to do_ _to you_ _ever since she heard that you called Sam_ _mie_ _. You_ _remember_ _my mother don't you Uncle Joe?….._ _Mary_ _Jaworski… But_ _as I recall the CIA called her Agent_ _ **FROST** , didn't they…?"_

 _"_ _Y_ _ou do remember her_ _,_ _don't you_ _Uncle J_ _oe_ _?... No?..._ _Okay, I will call downstairs and get her to come up and jog your memory….. I know that she wants to see YOU….._ _"_

He made as if to get his phone out but Jack looked horrified, gasping out. "F... F... Frost?... **_NO!_** "

Chuck nodded as he smiled evilly. "See… I knew you wouldn't forget _her_!"

Then he went back to Polish again. "S _am_ _mie_ _does not owe you_ _ANYTHING you bastard_ _!_ _In fact s_ _he_ _has earned_ _the right to kill you_ _very_ _slowly and painfully_ _as her due for_ _what she was forced to endure because of_ _YOUR_ _stupidity and greed!"_

Jack forgot his fear of Frost for a moment and banged angrily on the table at that, shouting. " _You do not know the shameful and disgusting things that were done to me in_ _that_ _prison,_ _all_ _because SHE_ _had some stupid dream of going_ _to university!"_

Chuck leant over the table and shouted in his face. " _I do n_ _o_ _t_ _CARE_ _what happened to_ _you_ _, you pathetic bastard!_ _Whatever_ _you may have_ _had to put up with_ _was nothing but than a tiny fraction of what Sam_ _mie_ _was forced to go through_ _for the last ten years, all because of YOUR stupidity and greed_ _! And it WASN'T because of_ _Sammie_ _that you were caught, you_ _were_ _caught because_ _YOU_ _were too arrogant and stupid to honour your promise to stop running cons for_ _just O_ _ne…_ _Fucking…. School... Y_ _ear! Not even a full year, just a SCHOOL year! That was all she_ _asked from you_ _so that she could_ _prepare_ _herself to_ _make_ _a decent life_ _for herself_ _and you fucking_ _well_ _promised to give her that much! But it wasn't even half of that before you started trying to run your pathetic little cons again,_ _WAS_ _IT_ _Uncle Joe_ _?_ _And w_ _hat's more you were doing it all behind Sammie's back_ _so that she had no warning of what was coming_ _and_ _then you told that bastard_ _Langston_ _F_ _ucking_ _Graham EXACTLY where to find her when you got yourself caught_ _!"_

 _"That's right, he wasn't FBI Uncle Joe, he was CIA, the very same bastard who has been making Auntie Em and most of our family's lives hell for over thirty five years now, but you weren't ever brave enough to ask the big scary black man who he was, WERE you? Did he even have to do anything to make you give up your daughter or did you just piss yourself and offer her up like the craven coward that you are, in hope that he'd go easier on you if you gave him someone else to go after?…."_

Chuck's eyes flashed with unbridled rage as he saw that he'd hit the nail on the head. _"Of COURSE that's what you did!_ _YOU are the cause of all the pain and horror that my Sam_ _mie_ _has_ _been forced to endure_ _for the last eighteen fucking years_ _and I desperately want to kill you for that..._ _very_ _slowly and_ _VERY_ _painfully... but I_ _cannot_ _usurp_ _Sammie's_ _right to exact justice_ _on_ _you_ _herself_ _for what you have done to her!"_

Jack just sat there, paralysed in fear as he looked into Chuck's eyes, as he'd seen eyes like these before, mainly in prison, and he'd seen the sort of things that happened to the ones who were unfortunate enough to have caught their attention…. they invariably died, or wished they had. They had been forced to watch men being killed, slowly and painfully just like he said, to show the rest of them what was in store for them if they tried to resist. Yes... this was that psychotic bitch Frost's son alright, there was no doubt about that now, she'd scared the shit out of him whenever she'd looked at him like this too... If he'd known who she really was he would have run a lot sooner!

Chuck saw out of the corner of his eye that John and the others had intercepted the restaurant staff who'd been hurrying over to try and break up the loud screaming match that had mostly been in some foreign language, and from the restaurant people's expressions they were wishing that it had _all_ in that foreign language, because most people in the restaurant wouldn't have understood what was being shouted then. He drew a breath to try and get himself under control and went on more quietly, trying to wrap this up before trouble developed.

" _But as much as you deserve it, I don't want my Sammie to have killing a piece of shit you on her conscience, s_ _o t_ _his is what is going to happen Uncle J_ _oe_ _._ _The moment_ _we leave here, you will forget Sam_ _mie_ _'s_ _phone_ _number and you will_ _NEVER_ _attempt to contact Sam_ _mie_ _or anyone else in the family ever again!_ _Nor will_ _you ever say a single word about anyone in_ _our_ _family to_ _ANYONE, in fact you will forget all about us if you know what's good for you.._ _.._ _As of today, y_ _ou will_ _ALSO_ _give up the con game_ _for good and you will_ _find a way_ _to make an honest living with a_ _proper_ _job,_ _ _because_ _you are_ _much_ _too stupid_ _to be a con man_ ….."_

 _"In fact you will_ _NEVER_ _do anything illegal_ _EVER_ _again!_ _D_ _o you want to know WHY you will do this Uncle J_ _oe_ _? I will tell you! You will do_ _EXACTLY_ _as I say because as soon as I get home tonight I will be adding you to police alert lists world wide and_ _cross_ _linking every single alias and image that has_ _EVER_ _been associated with you in EVERY law enforcement_ _and intelligence_ _database around the world, I will also link in every con and_ _crime_ _that you_ _ha_ _ve ever done, and I_ _will probably link_ _in_ _and add_ _others that are similar to convince the police that it will be worth their while to make your arrest a priority._ _But on top of all that, by the time_ _I_ _am finished... your_ _records_ _will_ _show_ _proof_ _that you have_ _been_ _do_ _ing_ _all_ _manner_ _of terrible and disgusting things to innocent_ _little_ _children_ _for_ _over forty years_ _now, because I will dig up the foulest crimes against children I can find and link them all to YOU_ _. As you've proven_ _time and again that you can make village idiots look smart Uncle Joe_ _, I_ _wi_ _ll_ _try to put_ _this to you_ _more_ _simply….."_

 _"_ _After all, I would have expected even your average village idiot to have been bright enough to wonder why the hell an FBI agent would bother coming to their prison out of the blue over ten years after they arrested them to tell them they were being released but they weren't allowed to go near their daughter who was working a rich mark in LA and then actually give you her phone number to call her, or for that matter why the FBI would have ANYTHING to do with parole proceedings for a petty crook like you, even if you were in prison for four or five times as long as the normal sentence for what you were arrested for, but you weren't bright enough to ask about any of that, WERE you Uncle Joe?_ _"_

 _"_ _So from this point on Uncle Joe, i_ _f you_ _ever_ _do_ _anything_ _at all to make the Police look at you, speed, run a red light, park in the wrong place,_ _scratch yourself in public….._ _ANYTHING_ _, no matter where_ _in the world_ _you are, you_ _WILL_ _be arrested._ _And as soon as_ _you are arrested, they_ _wi_ _ll find out_ _about_ _what a disgusting child molester you are_ _so_ _you will be thrown straight into prison to protect_ _innocent_ _children from you. But when you g_ _o_ _to prison this time, what happened to you before_ _will seem like nothing but a fond memory_ _, because_ _most men in prison_ _absolutely HATE_ _animals who do_ _those_ _types of things to little children. I have a theory about why that is the case, you see I believe that most men, no matter how bad they are, care for their children…. present company excluded of_ _COURSE_ _! That's why_ _the men inside tend to_ _do whatever they can to ensure that monsters like_ _what_ _your records will say you are NEVER get out of prison_ _alive….._ _to_ _try and_ _protect their children, and_ _quite_ _possibly other children_ _as well_ _, from monsters like you."_

 _"Do you understand me Uncle J_ _oe_ _?"_

Jack nodded frantically. He'd turned to his daughter to try and convince her to plead for mercy for him, but she was looking at him with even more hatred than Frost's son, so it was obvious that he would get no help from her. He also couldn't work out how this bastard could have known exactly what had happened the two times he'd met Graham, or whatever the hell that spook's name was.

It was getting to be quite unpleasant to be near Jack now because Chuck had quite literally scared the shit out of him, and the smell was starting to turn their stomachs. Chuck tried to get Sarah to go wait for him at the door but she wouldn't leave his side, so he spoke quickly.

 _"So this is what_ _is going to_ _happen Uncle J_ _oe_ _, you will NEVER try to contact or say anything about Sam_ _mie_ _or anyone else in the family EVER again._ _From this point on y_ _ou will go straight and make sure you never give the Police any reason to look at you, and you will do absolutely everything_ _you can_ _to_ _try and_ _ensure that Sam_ _mie_ _and I never have any reason to think about you ever again. If you fail to meet_ _any_ _of these requirements_ _even once_ _, I will come_ _for_ _you, and I can assure you that no matter how far you run or where you_ _try to_ _hide, even if you_ _a_ _re in the most secure prison in the world, I_ _WILL_ _find you. When I do, I_ _WILL_ _get to you, and I_ _WILL_ _end you, so slowly and painfully that you_ _will be_ _begging to die_ _for a very long time before I allow you to_ _. The CIA still has an active kill order out for you, so if you are very lucky THEY will find you and kill you before I do, but I be doing my best to ensure that they do NOT, because you do not deserve the clean death they would give you. Do you understand me Uncle Joe?"_

Jack just responded with a gasping, horrified. " _YES!… YES!"_

Chuck looked at Sarah to ask if she wanted to add anything and she smiled grimly. She'd calmed down enough by now to remember to speak in Polish. " _One more thing DADDY,_ _You_ _know much_ _Auntie Mary frightens you?"_

He nodded frantically again. " _Well you should know that_ _thanks to_ _Auntie Mary_ _and everyone else who trained us and all the military special operations and intelligence operations training courses we've completed…. Charlie and I are both more dangerous than Auntie Mary EVER was! Not to mention the fact that we both HATE you for what you've put me and Mama through…. S_ _o don't think for a minute that my Charlie_ _may not_ _be able to do what he_ _said he would_ _DADDY,_ _because I can assure you... that was n_ _o_ _t a threat_ _that Charlie made_ _,_ _i_ _t was a_ _PROMISE_ _!"_

Charlie gave Jack an evil smile at that _. "And one more thing Uncle Joe... Even if by some chance there DID happen to be enough people of a high enough calibre to stop me, which is EXCEEDINGLY unlikely... there's always Mom and the hundreds of OTHER top special ops and assassination specialists we have in our family nowadays who love Sammie and Auntie Em enough to come after you to finish the job. And my death will only add to their anger, because the only way to stop me will be to kill me, and if that happens I can assure you that I will NOT die alone!"_

They turned to look at Carina, to see whether she wanted to say anything to her father, but she just shook her head in disgust, so Chuck put his arm around Sarah and led her from the restaurant, the others throwing cash on the tables that would be more than enough to cover the cost of what they'd ordered plus tips and leaving on Chuck and Sarah's heels. When they saw Chuck coming out the door with a murderous expression, the valets scrambled to get his SL and bring it up as quickly as they could without risking scratching it, as he looked even more frightening now than he had when he arrived.

Jack was still sitting at the table, shaking, long after the last of them had left the hotel, but he was firmly asked to leave, because the smell coming from his table was starting to cause complaints from the other diners. He'd hardly had a chance to get back to his room and clean himself up before he heard sirens and looking out, saw police cars pulling up to the front of the hotel. Knowing that they would have to be here about the incident in the restaurant and that they'd be sent straight to his room, he scrabbled to throw his things (including the befouled Armani suit) into his bags and ran down the back stairway to the hotel's parking level where he threw everything in the car and drove off as quickly as he could without attracting attention.

* * *

By the time they got back to El Castillo, Sarah was feeling a little bit better, and as soon as she got out of the car she was being hugged by Emma, Mary, Ellie, Di, Carina, Zondra, Robin and Anna. Chuck was being hugged by _everyone_ , male and female alike, as the ones who spoke Polish had translated what he and Jack had said for the ones who didn't. Mary and John told him how proud they were of him, while Emma couldn't stop thanking him.

It would take them a while to get the distasteful taint of Jack Burton from their minds, but at least he was out of their lives for good now.

As soon as he got upstairs, Chuck set up tracking on Jack, to make sure that they'd get a warning if he was ever brave or stupid enough to put anyone on Sarah's (or Auntie Em's) trail again, he didn't say anything to Sarah about that, but she worked it out herself of course. Chuck let Jack slide on skipping out of the Marriot and ditching the credit cards he was using without paying his bills, as he'd just put the fear of god into him about what would happen to him if he was arrested and he _had_ done exactly what he told Jack he'd do to his records. When Jack spent the next month repeatedly changing identities and towns without any indication of making any attempt to settle down to an honest life, though, Chuck started prodding, with Sarah's help.

Whenever Jack got a new mobile, they would call him and play him a clip from a song about 'watching you' or prison. Whenever he got to a new town, he'd get a call that night with the same type of thing and the local radio stations would be full of dedications of those songs to the names of his more common aliases. Jack tried to run and hide whenever they did that for another month, but he eventually worked out that what his daughter's boyfriend had told him was true, that there was no way to hide from him.

Jack also realised out that if he didn't do as this 'Charlie' told him, he would surely carry through on the 'promise' that he'd made, so he got himself a job as salesman in a town in the mid-west and settled down to a 'normal' life. He just hoped that doing what he was told would be enough to keep him safe from his daughter's boyfriend and Frost, and his own daughter for that matter.

 **A/N: The quote was, of course, Meg Ryan's line from Top Gun 'take me to bed or lose me forever'.**

 **A/N** **2** **: The Jack segment may have been too dark for some, but that's the way it came out and I believe that it's in context.**

 **A/N3: I had the overwhelming urge to have Jack as Carina's father again so in What are Your Intentions there's a shortish segway where it comes out that he was sent to seduce Di into joining the CIA when she was at Harvard, she didn't go to the dark side but she did get pregnant and gave the baby up for adoption at birth to protect her from the Beckman family. This was four years before Emma met him so it doesn't create any issues in the family.  
**

 **I've actually been chopping and changing quite a lot of late, so if anyone's interested, this is the** ** **who's who of** Lost Childhood.**

 **The original core group was: Mary Donner nee Marja Zaleska,** ** **Bryan (Bry) Mills,** Charlene (Charly) Baltimore nee Karolina Barsukov, Phoebe Phillips nee Noble, Roan Montgomery nee Vladimir Larionov, ******Diane (Di) Beckman,** Michael Buckminster (Buck) Posey nee ******Buckminster** Johnson, Sue Posey nee Su Li, Emmeline (Emma) Larouche nee Emma Burdon, John (Jack) Ryan and ******Stephen Donner nee Stefan Jaworski**.**

 **Core add ons to original group were: Ex-USMC Colonel** ** **Michael (Mike) Colt nee Hollis (hung out to dry as a scapegoat and set up to be killed for Panama like Buck was for Grenada), Belle Colt,** Henry (Hank) Higgins, Michael ********(Mike)**** Cooper, ******John Casey nee Alexander Coburn,** Thomas Jefferson (Jeff) Barnes nee Thomas Baker, Pamela (Pam) Landry, Michael Weston, Samuel (Sam) Axe and Fiona (Fi) ****Glenanne.  
**

 **Second generation family is: Diane (Bai) Lee nee Bai Lee (Sue and Buck), Wayne (Rocky) Johnson (Phoebe and Buck) and Richard (Rick) Noble (Phoebe and Langston Graham), Robin (Rob) Cunnings (Bry and Pam),** ** ** ** **Carina (Red) Miller nee Katherine Hansen (Di and Joe Blake),****** Olivia Barbara (Sally) Ryan (Jack), John Patrick (Jack) Ryan Jr. (Jack),** **Eleanora (Ellie) Noble nee Jaworski and Charles (Chuck)** ** **Carmichael nee Jaworski** (Mary and Stephen), ****Sarah Carmichael nee Samara Burdon (Emma and Joe Blake), Caitlin (Katy) Caine (Charly), Alexandra (Alex) McHugh (John), Josephine (Josie) Larouche (Di and Roan), Vivien (Viv) Mazur nee Vivian Volkoff (Mary and Alexei Volkoff) and Kimberley (Kim) Mills (Bry)**

 **Core second gen add ons to date are: Zoe Alleyne, Samuel (Sam) Colt and Gypsy Colt (Mike and Belle Colt)** **, Anna Wang Nee Wu, Louisa (Lou) Rabi Nee Palone, Michael (Skip) Johnson,** ** **Zondra (Zee) Rizzo nee** ** **Yasmin Mazdaki** , Albert Laurent, **Maylene (Mei) Li nee Mei-Ling Cho, Leslie Mahoney nee Laszlo Mahinovski and Peter (Pete) Tang nee Tong  
**

 **Third Generation are: Alexis (Lexie) White (Bai), Benjamin (Benjie) Johnson (Rocky and Zoe) and Charlotte (Lottie) and Charlene (Charlie) Rabi nee Palone (Chuck and Lou)**

 **NB: I'm using 'nee' in the traditional sense of 'born as' here.**


	18. Stepford Wives and Jimmy Bond

**In case anyone's interested, I put together a who's who of the active family members in the Lost Childhood world at the end of the last chapter.**

 **NB: If anyone needs help with the Jimmy Bond reference, it was Woodie Allen's character in the '67 comedy version of Casino Royale. ('nough said ;^)**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be a few changes in the first hour or so as I tend to fix things that don't look quite right to me in the final form.**

The team's next major Intersect mission was actually an NSA/DCS operation, they'd sent a DCS agent in to root out a suspected Fulcrum cell and it appeared to be going well, his cover was holding up and his reports stated that he was getting closer to the cell. Then he suddenly disappeared, only to be found on the side of the road weeks later, apparently brain dead. Di accepted the assignment as soon as the Director of the NSA mentioned the man's condition, because she knew that all Intersect test subjects except for Chuck and Stephen who lived had ended up brain dead, and it was only a matter of degree with Stephen.

The man's medical records were included in the information package from the NSA, and it didn't take Stephen long to confirm that all the signs pointed to him being a Intersect test subject, which meant that it had to be Chuck who went in as he was only one who had any real chance of surviving being exposed to an Intersect upload without being harmed, and he also had the best chance of identifying Fulcrum agents due to the Intersect information.

Di wasn't at all surprised that Chuck fought against Sarah going in with him, because he wanted to protect the woman he loved. She couldn't help smiling at the fact that for once she'd known something before him, especially as it was one his favourite quotes from one of those silly science fiction movies that he loved so, 'Resistance is futile!' Chuck was the only one in the room who seemed to believe that there was _any_ possibility of him going in there without Sarah, and Di was a little surprised at how long it took him to give in and accept the inevitable.

She tried not to show it, but the way he kept fighting this when it was obvious that he had lost the argument frightened her though, because that had to mean that this was even more dangerous than the rest of them understood. That in turn reminded her of the chilling image she'd put in Mike's head of American cities looking like war zones if they threatened the family, because if anything happened to Sarah, Chuck would almost certainly go on a rampage that would make that vision become a reality… With that image in mind, Di pushed to make sure that they'd have plenty of support in there.

* * *

The NSA had already organised the purchase of a house in the street where they believed the Fulcrum cell was located after their agent disappeared, attempting to bury the identity of the buyers so that there would be no connection to them, and the house was now ready to move into. It didn't take Chuck long to set up IDs for newlyweds Charles and Sarah Cavenagh, making his profession a construction engineering consultant to explain why he and his co-workers were all athletic and well educated, and organise for a couple of removal vans full of household goods to give them the excuse for the new Mrs Cavenagh to have a gaggle of girlfriends with her to help get the house set up, as well as Jim Poole, which was John's cover as a handyman who the Cavenaghs had engaged to address the hundred and one issues around the property that supposedly needed fixing.

That meant that they had John, Gertrude, Zoe, Robin, Carina and Zondra at the house with Sarah during the day when Chuck was supposedly at work and Mary and Ellie were sitting in a van full of Cinders people less than fifteen minutes away too. They would have liked to have had more in the house, but knew that they were pushing the bounds of credibility as it was with five women there all day to help set up the house and five husbands coming home with Chuck for a barbecue, plus a handyman as big and fit as John.

Sarah's tone worried Chuck when she called to get him to pick up the extra meat and everything else they'd need, because they were apparently putting on a barbecue for the entire street now, as well as them, Jim the handyman, the girls and the guys from work as they'd originally planned. The story was that the guys were coming home with Chuck for a barbecue and then take their wives home because the girls had been helping Sarah all day…. and they'd invited Jim to stay because Chuck had been a handyman himself and knew that being treated well by the people you're working for motivates you to do a better job, not that Jim needed that from Sarah's praise. He tried to keep his tone light as he asked how many they had to cater for. "Oh, I think there's about thirteen or fourteen couples in the neighbours, plus the thirteen of us with Jim the handyman, so you'll need enough for forty or so?"

"Can you talk?"

"Only for a moment, those bitches are in and out all the time, they're like evil fucking Stepford wives! They're _wrong_ Chuck, all the girls and Casey agree. That's another thing, we've had a dozen supposedly bored and neglected housewives in and out of here all day, and not one of them has given Casey a second look when he was waltzing about in those tight shorts and T Shirt, you know that's a good look on him so him ignoring him means that they have to be up to something. It's not just Carina who's saying that they'd have to be blind not to look at that, it's all of us! And the way that they _insisted_ that we put on this 'getting to know the neighbours' barbecue tonight, _aaarrrgggghhh!_ "

"Are you OK?"

"I will be when you get here, it's just that this whole street is so _wrong_ that we all just want to get the VALs out and see whether they bleed when we shoot them."

He laughed. "Well you better not do that until we've achieved our mission objectives Honey."

"Uhhu, that's right Honey, now you guys better not stop at any bars on the way home you hear? Because there's all that heavy furniture to be moved yet and we need that food, and you're manning the barbecue tonight too Buster!"

It was obvious from that that someone had come in. "I love you, I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Love you too Honey. Actually... do you think could you see if you could talk Marco into letting you all finish a little early today so that you lot can help get the house straightened out? It looks like a war zone here and we have everyone coming over tonight…." She laughed, "Gertie says to tell Marco that if he _doesn't,_ he'll be sleeping on the couch a night for every hour he keeps you there, because there's so much work to be done before all our neighbours get here tonight."

"How much earlier, one hour, two, three, four?"

"From Gertie's face, you better make it four, or at the very least three."

"Right, we'll get moving as soon as we can, see you soon Sweetheart."

"You better! Love you too Honey, bye."

Chuck called Rick and asked him to bring Marco, Rocky, Michael and Vinnie to the Dungeon ops centre, then headed down there himself.

* * *

He summarised what Sarah had said and said that they were heading out straight away. When Chuck asked Marco if he could pick up enough meat for a barbecue for forty odd people, Rocky burst out laughing at the look of confusion on Marco's face and told him that he had it, but told Marco that he was coming to the butcher's with him to help collect it. When everyone was clear on what they were doing, Chuck went to meet Vinnie in the garage. They couldn't use the type of machines that they really liked for a mission like this (especially as Chuck was wanting to go in hard and fast as an airborne assault team at that point), so Rocky took the Nissan Stagea RS260. Other than the bigger wheels and tyres, the fact that the station wagon actually had a race spec GT-R drive train under it didn't show at all. Chuck took the Lancer Evo Wagon, it was like the Stagea and the Evo that they'd set up for Anna, in that the average person had no idea what it could do, and it fit the image of what a young guy would get when he had been forced to give in and drive a family car but it had a seriously tweaked works Evo IX drive train underneath it. Michael took the Volvo V 70R wagon with the full race drive train, it wasn't quite as fast as the Evo or Stagea, but then Michael didn't drive like Chuck or Rocky either.

As Rocky and Marco had the meat covered, Chuck went to the grocer's to quickly pick up the rest the items on the shopping list with Vinnie, then he had Vinnie hanging on for grim death on the trip 'home' from there, because he was anxious to reassure himself that Sarah and the others were OK. As a result, they beat everybody except for Rick, who'd been having fun on his brother in law's Harley, there... and he'd only just arrived when they got there.

The first thing Chuck did when he arrived was go in to see Sarah, only then did he go back out to help Vinnie and Rick get the groceries out of the Evo, Sarah, Carina and Zondra came with him to give a hand, after all, Carina and Zondra had to come greet their 'husbands' too.

Michael turned up in the Volvo as they were unloading the Evo, so he helped carry things inside, and Rocky and Marco were the last to arrive in the Stagea with the meat. Once everything had been brought inside, the men got to work putting the furniture where they'd been told while the women started getting the food ready for the barbecue.

John, or rather Jim, came through from the kitchen laughing at one point, and when the guys asked what he was laughing about, he told them how Gertie, Fi and Zoe were all winding up Sarah about the fact that Chuck should be in the kitchen while she organised the house, seeing as he was the cook of the family. Carina and Zondra were trying to stand up for Sarah but she was laughing as much as the other women were, because she knew that they were right.

By the time the locals started turning up, they had all the living areas downstairs unpacked and straightened out, boxes flattened and stashed away and the girls had cleaned up the house. They had only set up a couple of the bedrooms upstairs as they didn't intend to be there for long. With thirteen top operatives there, they were confident that they could handle anything that was thrown at them, but more to the point, they didn't miss much.

* * *

It was obvious that the locals weren't at all happy that all the 'family' from Chuck's work, _and_ the handyman, were there for the barbecue. One of the women actually made a comment to Sarah to the effect that this was supposed to be a 'meet the neighbours' barbecue, but Sarah just looked her in the eye and said. "My girlfriends have been there all day, helping me get unpacked, _as well as_ helping me put this together for you people without notice…. for that matter this barbecue was meant to be for just us and our husbands and our handyman, I only agreed to inviting the rest of the street because everyone seemed to want to meet us. So if anyone doesn't like our friends being here, well you all know where the door is!"

This wasn't enough to change the neighbours' behaviour, and what Sarah had been saying to Chuck earlier was clear to all of them, the local husbands were all over Sarah and the local wives were all over Chuck, but they totally ignored the rest of them. It was frustrating for Chuck, because he wasn't flashing on any of them, but it was like Sarah said, they were all like evil Stepford wives (and husbands), who were programmed to _only_ go after the Cavenaghs. Carina, Zondra, Zoe and Robin were all beautiful and Gertrude qualified as attractive, but none of them got a single look from any of the men, even when Carina and Robin were flirting outrageously. Similarly, Chuck believed that John, Rocky, Rick, Michael and even Vinnie were all very attractive men, but none of them got any attention from the women, even though Rick and Michael were supposedly using their 'wives' behaviour to try and sell the fact that they had open marriages to get some action from the wives.

Unfortunately, this meant that Sarah and Chuck were the only ones who had any chance of getting information from the locals, so they reluctantly agreed that they'd have to start working them. Sarah stopped giving the husbands the cold shoulder and started getting friendly with them and Chuck pretended to get angry about that and opened up to the wives. They discovered a bug one of the trays that had been brought over and Chuck identified it as belonging to Fulcrum when he flashed on it. They worked out that it had been brought over by Sylvia, the rather aggressive cougar from across the street who had pissed off Sarah by trying to tell her to get rid of their 'friends'. Anna and the guys dug up records that showed a lot of heavy duty computing equipment being delivered to that address, so they needed to get into the house to check it out, and there was unfortunately only one way to do that.

They had to wait until all the neighbours had gone home and they'd swept the house for bugs again before they could talk about it. John, as the handyman who'd only been invited to stay for the barbecue as a reward for his hard work, left at the same time as the neighbours and Gertrude, Zoe and Robin went home with their 'husbands' soon after. That left Chuck and Sarah with Carina and Zondra and their 'husbands' to clean up from the barbecue and go over what they'd found out.

Sarah wasn't happy about the fact that her husband was going to have to seduce that filthy old skank from across the road and she was actually quite vocal about it. Chuck went to her and held her, whispering that he wouldn't be doing anything with that woman, if worst came to worst, he'd tranq her with one of those twilight darts, put her in bed and leave, he'd find some way to convince her that they'd had sex later.

Sylvia had made a point of telling Chuck that her husband was heading off on another business trip tomorrow, so what they set up was that as soon as John was there in the morning and Sylvia's 'husband' had left, Sarah would go out for a 'day with the girls'. Then Chuck would go to Sylvia to say that he was sure that Sarah was cheating on him again, and two could play that game, and hopefully he could keep her downstairs to prevent things going too far.

They finished cleaning things up while they were talking, so the other three 'couples' headed off. Carina had Anna's Evo and Zondra had one of the Subarus there, so only Rick was going back on the Harley. Rick could see from the look in Chuck's eye that he was quite serious when he told him that he'd kick his arse if he did anything stupid and got himself hurt, and he could expect twice as much from Ellie, but he already had a bit of an idea of what Chuck's Harley could do from the ride over so he promised to be careful.

* * *

In the morning, Sarah got dressed up and took off in the Evo after John turned up, and half an hour later Chuck was knocking on Sylvia's door. He groaned to himself when she opened the door with a hungry smile and asked "So the honeymoon's over already is it?", but he went along with it, nodding angrily as he said.

"You saw the way she was carrying on last night. And this morning she suddenly tells me that she's going out for a day with the girls and she put _way_ too much effort into looking her best for that! She's gone off to hook up with one of those guys she was playing up to last night, just like she used to, I know it! So what's good for the goose is good for the gander, right?"

She looked like she was going to devour him as she reached for him, saying "Oh you are _so_ right lover!" as she dragged him inside and shut the door. Sylvia dragged him into the lounge room and poured him a scotch ('his' brand, so she had obviously been paying attention to what he was drinking the night before) and told him to make himself comfortable while she went to freshen up "I won't be more than ten minutes, fifteen tops, I promise Tiger!" and rushed upstairs.

Chuck snorted as he looked at the drink, as if he'd be stupid enough to drink anything _she_ gave him, even if (he sniffed the glass) he didn't detect something a little off about it? He waited until he heard the door close upstairs before he started looking, there was a study/office downstairs so that was the obvious place to start. After a cursory look through the paperwork on the desk, he moved on to the computer. It was secured rather better than most home PCs, but the Piranha had no trouble getting into it.

When he managed to break into the computer, though, he saw a symbol that triggered a partial flash and went to look into it, but the line 'curiosity killed the cat' came to mind as he was caught by the images of the Intersect upload that started flashing on the screen. It must have just been a very small upload to test basic compatibility though as he came to about five or six minutes later with a slight headache.

Looking at the screen, it had already locked itself again so he quickly put everything back as he'd found it and hurried back to the lounge room, grabbing the glass to pour half of the drink down the sink in the kitchen and return it to where he'd been sitting before calling up the stairs "I've gotta go, something's wrong... I don't know what but I think I'm gunna….." before making a gagging sound and running out the door.

* * *

As soon as he was inside 'his' house he pulled out his phone, quickly confirmed that there were no bugs and called Auntie Di to tell her that they had their confirmation because he'd just been hit with an Intersect upload. She was worried and wanted to make sure he was OK when she heard that but he waved it off, saying that it had only been small, but it was enough to justify a strike, so he told her to call in the strike and hung up. They had this all set up, ready to go, the FBI would come in to say that they'd found that there was a terrorist cell in the street and take all the neighbours in to get their statements about everything they knew about Sylvia and her husband.

It was hardly fifteen minutes after Chuck ran out of the house that Sylvia's 'husband's car screeched to a halt in their drive and he ran inside, so obviously he hadn't gone very far on his 'business trip'. Chuck called Auntie Di to tell her about this new development, overriding her when she tried to interrupt him, but while they were talking, the Evo screeched into _their_ drive.

Running for the door, he barked. "What's Sarah doing here?"

"You hung up before I could tell you, we were on a video conference when you called and she ran out as soon as she heard what you said."

Chuck hung up and shoved the phone in his pocket as he ran out to grab Sarah and get her safely inside, but before he could reach her, they were both tranqued. When John saw that he ran out to drag them inside, but he hardly got three steps from the door before he was taken down too, because as soon as their 'neighbours' got the word about what had happened at Sylvia's, they went into action like the professionals they were, which meant that they'd had the front of the Cavenagh house, if not all of the house, covered by multiple snipers with tranq rifles by the time Sarah arrived.

* * *

The next thing Chuck knew, he was strapped into a chair in a room full of equipment and monitors. Sylvia and the other 'neighbours' were all working around him, setting up the monitoring and testing equipment. He decided to try playing through with the cover, so he asked in a panic what was going on, why was he tied down like this, what was this place and where was his wife? but Sylvia laughed, saying. "She's not your wife, Charles, she's a CIA Agent, so I expect that you're one too."

Trying to keep up the act, Chuck kept going. "What are you talking about? Sarah's not a CIA agent, she's my wife! What do you want with me?"

He saw Sarah, handcuffed to a chair in the next room, trying to get free, but one of the other neighbours, Brad White, answered his question as he finished strapping Chuck's head in place. "You have a very special brain Mister Cavenagh, and we're hoping to finally get this working with you. Everybody else we've tried this on has failed, but I have a feeling that you'll be the one who gets it to work for us."

"What are you talking about?"

Sylvia stepped in again. "What you saw on the computer upstairs was part of a program Charles, the CIA developed it originally, but they gave up on it before it had reached its true potential. We've taken what they had to use as the basis for our improved version of their program, and we _will_ succeed where they failed!"

"OK, I'll do whatever you want, but let Sarah go, please?"

Sylvia laughed again. "Don't tell me you've actually fallen for her? You poor sap! What did she tell you? That you had a future together, that she _cared_ about you? Sucker! Were you so blinded by her looks that you couldn't tell that that was nothing but an act? You were just a job to her Charles, nothing she ever told you about her feelings for you was _real_!"

White laughed as well. "Don't worry Son, this will help you get over her, _if_ you survive it..."

He glanced at Sylvia, saying. "I call dibs on the agent if she survives!" as he set up the apparatus to force Chuck's eyes to stay open, and with that they all moved off into the next room.

"Dibs? What are you, fucking _ten_? Just do your job and try and make it work this time you fool! If she survives she will be paired up with one of our operatives anyway so forget about her fat boy."

Sylvia's "husband" keyed something in and some screens dropped down in front of Chuck, Sarah was trying to call out to him but Sylvia just cut her off, snapping. "Don't bother, he can't hear you!"

Everyone in the room put some sort of safety glasses on, and they even put a pair on Sarah before Sylvia's 'husband' initiated the program.

When the program finished, Chuck passed out, and as he slumped in the chair they all started berating Brad White, saying that his damned program never did anything but wipe out the test subjects, until Chuck started to come to.

At that they all rushed in and Sylvia asked him. "Do you know where you are Charles?"

Chuck played along with their game. "Beneath the Meadow Branch subdivision in a Fulcrum lab that was built to pursue the Fulcrum initiative."

"What initiative?"

"To properly develop the Intersect program."

White was almost jumping up and down as he shouted "It worked!", but Sylvia looked calculating as she asked "Do you mind if we test your wife next Charles?"

Chuck looked at her with a confused expression, as he said. "What wife? I don't have a wife."

Sylvia waved at Sarah. "What's she then?"

"She is the CIA agent who was assigned to be my handler."

They were all slapping each other on the back as they got him out of the chair and started strapping Sarah into it.

All Chuck could think about was to take them out while they were occupied and get Sarah the hell out of there, letting the strike team that was on its way mop up anybody who was left when it got there, but just before he moved he saw John at the control console in the next room.

Chuck had his back to the Fulcrum Agents, so he winked back at him when John signalled that he was getting ready to initiate the program, turning to say. "Before you start, I'd like to tell Agent Walker something."

Sylvia sniggered. "Agent Walker eh? Good, now we know who she is."

Chuck leaned in close to her and whispered "Close your eyes", which made Sarah glance over his shoulder to see Casey at the console with the glasses on, so she squeezed her eyes shut tight and Chuck pulled her face into his chest to ensure that she would be doubly protected from seeing any of the images.

As soon as he saw Chuck pull Sarah's face into his chest, John activated the program and covered his eyes with his hands to add another layer of protection as Chuck had for Sarah.

Even though he'd already gotten through this OK, Chuck squeezed his eyes shut too, so he only heard the cries and crashing going on around him, but as soon as the flickering through his eyelids stopped, he opened his eyes to look around and saw all the Fulcrum people laying twisted on the floor, most of them unmoving.

When he asked Sarah if she was OK as he was unstrapping her, her response was "Yes, are you?", looking very relieved when he said "Yeah, I think so", and as soon as he had her free she leapt into his arms.

When John came into the room to make sure they were OK, Chuck noted his left thumb as he started to respond.

"Yeah, we're OK, but you actually did break your thumb to get out of the cuffs? I thought that was just some bullshit you came up with to wind me up when I was a kid?"

That made John look at his hand and wince. "Well it's not something that I'd want to do again, but it does the job and that's what matters."

After that they went through the facility, taking down and securing anyone else they found while they were waiting for the FBI to arrive. As soon as they'd dealt with the rest of the people in the facility, Sarah grabbed a first aid kit to strap up Casey's hand while Chuck searched for any instances of the Fulcrum Intersect information and pulled out any and all the drives holding that information, stashing them in a bag. He also removed the cipher from their system and any external storage media he could find in the facility and added them to the bag, too. He turned on and plugged in any other computers he found when he was looking for anything related to the Intersect, and then searched the network again for Intersect references and other useful information. Once he had moved everything he could find off the systems, he released their Armageddon malware onto the network to wipe out anything he may have missed, along with everything else.

When the FBI arrived, they handed everything but the Intersect information etc over to them, warning them not to plug anything into the network as they'd found when they tried to look at what was on the systems that they had been booby trapped with a rather virulent strain of malware and ordering them to secure everything in the facility and take anyone else they found in the street into custody because they all seemed to be part of this. As soon as that was all in hand, they took the bag with the drives etc and headed back to the Castle in the Evo. Once back at the Castle, Ellie's first order of business was to fix John's hand properly, then she forced Chuck to go through the first of many batteries of tests to determine what uploading the Fulcrum Intersect had done to him.

* * *

Chuck wasn't crazy enough to try and argue against the daily testing regimen that Ellie was putting him through, even though it was knocking him about more than the Fulcrum Intersect was, because he knew that she was only trying to look after him, and that she, like everyone else in his life, was worried about what this new Intersect in his head may do to him. Things only got more hectic when Stephen and Leslie flew in to work with Ellie on this. Stephen was the original designer of the Intersect, and Leslie had done more to advance the design than anyone else ever had since Stephen disappeared, so they could quite rightly be called the world's greatest authorities on the Intersect.

As well as the core designers, they had the only person who'd ever had the capacity to host the intersect without overloading his brain, and who was himself a brilliant designer and far better coder than either of them, along with a few more coding geniuses and a far more creative and brilliant neurologist than had ever been associated with any Intersect Program before. Once the fact that they had the complete images of _two_ separate operational Intersects was added to the human factor, no-one else could possibly be in a better position to fix Intersect issues for Chuck, and even more importantly, for Stephen, who was suffering far more from the damage that the one Intersect he had in his head had done to him than Chuck was from the _three_ that he currently had in his.

Stephen, Leslie, Ellie, Chuck, Anna and Jeff had been dissecting the CIA/NSA Intersect code since they got the final operational Intersect code and data that Graham's people had copied off the Intersect systems just before the Intersect Facility was fried, which Di had had handed over to her people along with the rest of the evidence for the investigation into the incident that killed Graham and everyone else anywhere near the Intersect systems. There were no significant differences between that version and the one that Larkin sent to Chuck, but Leslie had advised them of the fixes he'd made to some of the coding issues so they'd been using that image as the base code as they worked to come up with something to fix Stephen's problem. Getting the Intersect code and data image and Leslie joining them had changed the direction of Ellie's research, because fixing the Intersect was their best chance to to fix Stephen, so they were now combining Stephen and Leslie's Intersect knowledge and skills, Ellie's neurology expertise and Chuck, Anna and Jeff's superior coding skills in their effort to fix and improve what the government had created. One of the first things they did after they got the Intersect code was add the code of the governor that Stephen had come up with in the early Nineties to suppress the Intersect and slow the mental deterioration that it was causing _into_ the Intersect, to let the host suppress or enable the Intersect at will. This had made things safer for Stephen because he no longer needed to rely on the presence of an external device to suppress the Intersect, and the internal code did a lot better job of suppressing its activity than the external governor had. Needless to say, his Intersect wasn't re-enabled after it was suppressed as he could think a lot better without that churning away in his head, but they still needed to come up with a proper fix because the Intersect had done considerable damage to him in the eighteen years it had been in his head.

When they acquired the Fulcrum Intersect though, they had to step back and have a good, hard look at it, because while it was seriously flawed in some areas (part of that may have been related to the fact that Fulcrum's starting point for those elements had come from the damaged cipher etc that had been recovered from the destruction of the Intersect Facility that Larkin destroyed, something that _they_ didn't need to worry about because Stephen had created a new cipher that did what was supposed to for them), but there were other areas that went far beyond the CIA/NSA version. It appeared that Bradley White, though an irritating, sick bastard, actually may have had a few flashes of brilliance. Of course, no-one questioned the fact that White being fried by his own creation was poetic justice.

While they were very excited about the advances they were making to the Intersect design, and in particular the fundamental changes that Ellie was instigating through her neurology input, they had other responsibilities which meant that their work on this had to be put aside regularly. While their Carmichael/Noble House business requirements and Spectre work took them away from working on the Intersect, the biggest disruptions were usually the Intersect team missions, such as the one they were engaged for just before Ellie's thirty first birthday in February 2009.

* * *

Neither Chuck or Di were happy about this mission, Chuck because someone he cared about would be at risk, and Di because it was her daughter. They'd been engaged by the CIA, but Jane had subtly let them know that while the mission was genuine, she believed that the way it had been presented had to mean that it was a set up, because there was really only one viable way to approach it, as a seduction mission. They knew where and where the mark was supposed to be delivering the mission objective to Fulcrum, in a bar at a downtown hotel that night, but they had to get the intel and get out without Fulcrum realising that they had.

Coming from the Acting DCIA and his cronies, there had been little doubt that this was another attempt to push Sarah into a seduction mission, and they were discussing how they'd turn it down when Carina spoke up "I'll do it." Di started to say quickly "No, we don't do these..." but Carina cut her off.

"General, Director Bentley has indicated that the intel is that the mission objective is critically important, so I do not believe that we can afford not to make our best effort to recover it. I am aware that our team tries to steer clear of these sorts of missions and I'm quite happy about that as a general rule, but I believe that it may be necessary to make an exception in this case. I appreciate your concern, but I can handle it."

While Jane was looking from one to the other, trying to work out what was going on and Di was trying to come up with a response, Chuck spoke up. "We'll only take this path if we can set it up to ensure that you won't be in the position where sex is unavoidable, otherwise we'll be aborting it! If it comes to that, we'll go in hot and take the mark by force. It will be more difficult to get the information out of him that way, but we can manage."

Carina looked him in the eye, initially challenging him like she had her mother, but tears started in her eyes as she nodded. Chuck looked at Di's image and she also nodded with a tear in her eye. Chuck's intervention had given Di the time she needed to pull herself together enough to respond. "Are those terms acceptable to you Director Bentley? If we can set it up so that we can guarantee that our operative will not be forced to have sex with the mark, we will go forward with the specified approach, otherwise we will abort that and take an alternative approach."

Jane nodded, clearly wishing that she knew what was going on here. "Yes General I accept this amendment. I am personally more comfortable with this approach anyway, so I'll send you a communication to that effect." With that she said goodbye and cut the link.

* * *

That was why Chuck was sitting at the bar with Carina now, waiting for the mark. Sarah was sitting over with Zondra, Robin and Michael and John was behind the bar. They also had a dozen of the backup team upstairs, ready to move in.

John saw the mark enter and signalled them, and they started a dialogue that quickly ended with Carina grabbing her drink and stalking off. She sat down near the mark and basically asked him to shield her from that dweeb at the bar. At that, he just looked at his watch and started his spiel, and he was so full of himself that he didn't see anything at all suspicious when she agreed to go to his room within five minutes. His whole plan was obviously to take her up to his room for a quick screw and be back in time for his meeting with the Fulcrum agents, such a charmer he was.

As soon as Carina left the bar with the mark, Chuck, Sarah, Robin, Zondra and Michael followed them, but they ran into a complication when Chuck flashed on the Fulcrum agents who were coming to get what the mark had (luckily the Fulcrum Database he uploaded had included the files on all of their agents) as they were heading for the lift, so Chuck pointed them out to Zondra, Robin and Michael and sent them back in to keep an eye on them while he and Sarah went after Carina and the mark. In the elevator, Chuck called to send one of their four man teams down to support John, Robin, Zondra and Michael on the bar floor and put the others on alert.

Outside the mark's room, Sarah picked the lock and then they waited as they listened to the feed from Carina's mic. They weren't happy with what they were hearing, but they forced themselves to wait until Carina said 'Cristal' before they burst into the room. As soon as she uttered the word though, they were inside, and the sight of Carina bent over the bed in her underwear with her hands tied almost got the mark shot then and there.

Chuck swapped the OTs-38 Stechkin silent revolver for the pistol Sarah had taken from her clutch so that she could shoot the mark without alerting anyone if she had to while he untied Carina. As he removed the belt that was used to tie her hands, Chuck flashed on the belt buckle and smiled at Sarah, holding it up, as that was what they were there for.

The mark's ego was still running rampant, because he was actually trying to chat up Sarah while she was holding him at gunpoint. As soon as Carina had her dress back on and had straightened herself out a bit, they turned for the door, but the mark tried to grab the belt off of Chuck, so Sarah kneecapped him, then Chuck put him out with one punch.

When she saw the ball gag and ropes that he had out to use on Carina, Sarah couldn't control herself any longer so she walked up to kick him in the groin, rupturing his testicles..… She also kicked him in the side, but luckily for him she'd put most of her anger into the first kick so she didn't break more than two or three ribs with that kick. Then she decided that they needed to secure the prisoner properly and used the ropes and gag for the purpose. The fact that she knew how to truss him up in picture perfect B&D manner worried Chuck, as he knew that wasn't anything she'd ever be involved in by choice, but in under five minutes the mark was trussed up with the ball gag in his mouth.

That was when they heard that the Fulcrum agents were on their way up, so they quickly departed, locking the door behind them, and piled into the lift, calling for the backup team to take them alive if they could, and the Brit in the room as well. They cleared out of the hotel, leaving John, Zondra and Michael to direct the backup team. The Fulcrum agents tried to shoot it out, so the backup team had to put three of them down, which meant that they ended up handing three dead, and three live but damaged bodies over to the L.A. FBI office, and taking the Brit back to the Intersect base.

While they were heading downstairs in the lift, Chuck angrily demanded to know why Carina hadn't called them in earlier, as it had clearly gotten out of hand well before she called them in. She was both defiant and apologetic as she explained that the dress coming off was part and parcel of one of those missions and she was still confident of controlling the situation at that point, it was only when he suddenly grabbed her hands and tied them that she decided that it had gotten out of control and that was when she called for them. Sarah put her hand on Chuck's arm to calm him down, and look she gave him was saying that she would have handled that situation the same way Carina had, so he backed down at that. Carina hugged him and kissed him on the cheek, because she knew that he was only angry because he'd been afraid for her.

* * *

Chuck, with Stephen and Leslie's assistance (like he had any choice in the matter) extracted what was on the chip that had been in the mark's belt buckle, and when he did, they knew that they were in trouble, because it was all the results and videos of the Intersect testing that had been done on Chuck back at Fort Meade. They kept that chip and sent a doctored copy that was made to look like the original but didn't include anything that was sensitive or identified Chuck or anyone else on the team to the CIA, then they had a 'talk' to the mark.

The fact that the Intersect confirmed the Brit's claims of being Cole Barker, a British SIS and the operation being conducted with the CIA was interesting, but that would be handled as a separate matter. He wasn't inclined to be forthcoming with any more information until Mary started working on him, but he went from 'I won't tell you anything' to singing like a bird quite quickly after that.

What he told them raised all sorts of problems, and angered both Chuck and Mary quite a bit. "The CIA discovered that the chip had been sold to Fulcrum and intercepted it, but the Fulcrum agent was killed when they tried to take him. They couldn't decrypt the chip, but knew that it was meant to go to senior people in Fulcrum, so they made arrangements with our Chief for one of our agents, me obviously, who couldn't be identified by Fulcrum to act as the courier to deliver the chip so that I could identify the senior Fulcrum people I was handing it off to. Just before I got to the hotel for the meet, I was told that arrangements had changed and that Fulcrum would be sending someone to collect the chip from me. I reported that to the CIA people handling the operation and was told to proceed as planned."

Mary asked "Who in the CIA made the arrangements with the SIS?" The man shook his head "I wasn't told, but as the arrangements were made with the Chief of the SIS I presume that it must have been the Director of the CIA." Mary looked at Chuck and nodded, so Chuck addressed 'Barker'.

"We will investigate this and if we find what you've told us is true, you will be sent back to England, if you're lying to us you'll go into a black site with the other Fulcrum agents and never be heard of again. Just so you know, if you're telling the truth you won't be popular with your boss, as he's going to be in one hell of a lot of trouble over this, I thought he'd learnt his lesson last time, but apparently not."

With that, they turned off the recording devices, packed up their equipment and went to leave. The Brit started complaining that he needed medical attention and saying that they'd pay for treating him like this, so Chuck turned back. The man knew that he was looking death in the face so he shut up as Chuck began talking.

"Just what were you planning on doing to that agent?"

"I believed that she was Fulcrum, so I was going to distract her until the CIA arrived."

"So you were going to _distract_ her by tying her up with ropes and a ball gag and raping her."

The idiot smirked at that. "Oh it wouldn't have been rape, all real agents know that sex is part and parcel of missions and I can assure you she would have had a great time."

Chuck grabbed the knee where Sarah had kneecapped him and squeezed... _hard_ so the tool's face twisted in pain and he screamed. "When a woman is demanding that you let her go and doing everything she can to stop you tying her up it _is_ rape you bastard, especially when an agent goes so far as to abort her mission to stop you! For your information, that woman is very dear to us, so it was _very_ hard for us not to kill you when we came into the room and saw her like that. I would suggest that you shut up before I decide to save American taxpayer dollars and finish the job right now!"

This time the man kept his mouth shut as they left the room.

What Chuck hadn't realised was that Mary had turned the recording device back on when he turned back to answer the man, so they had that on the end of the recording.

* * *

They filled Di in on what they'd discovered and had the J50 prepped Chuck to take the recordings of Barker's interrogation to Washington, along with the details of what was on both chips, and Sarah, John and Carina went with him. Meanwhile Barker was delivered to the FBI office to be held there until someone decided what to do with him. In their meeting with Di and the DNI, they had a video-conference with Jane Bentley and she reported everything she'd been given to engage the Intersect team, and then they played the recording from the questioning. Jane accepted the response that the woman doing the questioning was an NSA interrogator and didn't comment on the fact that the methods used obviously weren't according to the rules, but she, like everyone else, got angrier as the recording played, especially at the discussion Chuck had with the SIS agent at the end.

Di was furious when she heard that part of the recording, this confused Jane, so when Mike gave Di and Carina looks requesting permission to tell Jane, but after considering the request, Di regretfully shook her head. "I'm sorry, no. That is something that cannot be shared over a video link with the CIA. It's not you Ms Bentley, it's others in the CIA that we don't trust."

Jane nodded and said that she understood.

The DNI thanked her for that and then went on. "We obviously have to take this to the President, as there have been several serious breaches of security and protocol….."

He looked back at Chuck. "Do we have any idea of what is on the chip that went back to the CIA?"

Chuck went to answer, but stopped and glanced at the screen and the DNI caught his meaning, apologising to Jane but telling her that he'd have to disconnect her link now because they couldn't allow any chance of this information getting out. She nodded again, understanding, just asking if she could be advised where this would be going. He assured her that she would be and thanked her for her assistance.

When it was down to the people who were cleared to know, Chuck told him what was on the chip that the CIA had, but more to the point, what was on the chip that had been going to Fulcrum. When the DNI exploded about how irresponsible it was to deliver something to Fulcrum without knowing now sensitive what was on it may be, Chuck reminded him about the information that had been on that other chip that had almost gone to Fulcrum because Gordon had been determined to keep everyone else out of what he saw as the CIA's territory.

With that, the Acting Director of the CIA was summoned to the DNI's office, while at Chuck's suggestion, the President was filled in on all the salient details of the matter and linked in via a blind video-conference so that he could see and hear everything that happened in the meeting.

* * *

When Gordon arrived to see the Intersect team there, he demanded to know what they were doing there, but shut up when the DNI barked "You're here to answer questions, not demand anything Gordon, so sit down and shut up!"

At first Gordon denied any knowledge of what they were talking about, until the DNI suggested that they get the Chief of the British SIS on the line, at which point he buckled and admitted that what they had recounted was essentially correct.

When the DNI demanded to know why the Intersect team hadn't been given the full details of the case (punctuating the question with an angry _"Again!"_ ) and the SIS agent hadn't been advised that their agents would be engaging him, he got belligerent and said that they had no need to be filled in on the details of a CIA operation, they just had to recover the chip, and they needed the scenario to be played out convincingly. The DNI went ballistic at that " _W_ _hat_ _?_ If the Intersect agent had been given the proper intel she could have identified herself to the SIS agent, who should never have been operating on U.S. soil anyway, and just had him hand over the chip. Because of the false intel both they and the SIS agent were given, she had to handle it as if he was a mark and the operation had to remain covert, so she almost got raped and the chip may have been lost!"

Gordon smirked. "It would hardly have been rape sir, and an agent of Walker's reputation should have been able to recover the chip without difficulty."

The DNI looked at him in disgust. "You're unfit to hold your position Gordon. Given that you were prepared to deliver that chip to Fulcrum anyway, why did you engage the Intersect team to intercept it?"

Gordon obviously didn't want to answer until the DNI barked. "Well?"

"When we heard that Fulcrum was sending someone to collect the chip, we decided to have the agent advise Fulcrum that their people must have been followed as the meet was compromised, in hope of getting another chance to identify the senior Fulcrum people. We didn't have any suitable agents available in Los Angeles at that point so we engaged them to intercept it. Where is the SIS agent anyway? He hasn't reported to us or his superiors since that operation, I presumed that as Walker was here, he would be too?"

"He's in custody in Los Angeles, where he'll stay until he's deported to the UK, and he will never be allowed to set foot on U.S. soil again."

"What? You can't do that! He's a friendly operative who was working on a joint operation with us."

The DNI stared him down. "No Gordon, as far as the United States Government is concerned, he was an enemy agent who had tied up a United States Federal Agent and was in the process of preparing to rape her. He was injured in his capture as a result of that. No-one with the proper authority had made any agreements with the British SIS, nor had they approved any operation of this nature on U.S. soil, so that SIS agent was, and is, regarded as an enemy agent."

"That's not correct Sir, I authorised the operation with the SIS."

"You really do need to get your hearing checked Gordon, as I just said _no one with the proper authority!_ You had _no_ authority to make any agreements with any foreign organisations, and I know for a fact that that was included in the paperwork that you signed to say that you'd read and understood when you accepted the acting role!... So as I said, no-one with the authority to do so authorised any part of this so he was operating on U.S. soil as an enemy agent and he will continue to be treated as such."

"Now, as the CIA is obviously incapable or unwilling to protect whatever government information is on this chip that was recovered, given the fact that you were actually handing it over to Fulcrum, I am hereby ordering you to deliver it to me immediately."

Gordon looked as though he wanted to be somewhere else. "Ah…. That isn't possible at the moment Sir, as that chip disappeared after it was delivered to us. I'm sure that it's just been misfiled, but we have no idea where it is at the moment."

The DNI clenched his fists as he tried to control himself. "So you're telling me that after an operation that was made exceedingly dangerous to the agents involved by critical information being deliberately withheld was successfully handled on behalf of the CIA by another group, after they delivered the chip with unknown government information to you, you _lost_ it?"

"Yes Sir, but we do know what was on it, it's just some unimportant test information from over a year ago."

"What test information, precisely? And how do we know that it's unimportant?"

"I don't know what it was exactly Sir, someone from where it was stolen from told us that as far as they could remember it was just some random tests that had been done in Oh Seven."

Chuck spoke up. " _Who_ from where it was stolen?"

The DNI looked a question at him and he said. "They may have been trying to cover up the nature of the data that was stolen if they were involved Sir, so they should be questioned about it."

The DNI nodded thoughtfully. "That's a very good point Mister Bartowski... Who was it Gordon?"

"I don't know, a man called called Ramsey, or Romsey or something like that."

The DNI looked at Di. "General, could you have someone look into that straight away please?"

She nodded, saying "Of Course Sir." and pulling out her phone to call the Intersect facility as he went on.

"Why would this chip be being delivered directly to _senior_ Fulcrum people if it contained nothing more than unimportant random test information Gordon? Did you look at what was on the chip to confirm what this Ramsey, or Romsey or whatever his name was told you?"

"No Sir, our people couldn't break the encryption."

"So encryption too strong for the CIA to break had been used to secure it and it was going directly to _senior_ people in Fulcrum, but you took the word of someone you didn't know where it came from that _as far as they remembered_ it wasn't important?"

"Why didn't you contact your superior, that is to say…. _**me**..._ to inform him of your plan and get approval to proceed, or at least get the chip decrypted so that we knew exactly what was on it before it was handed over to Fulcrum, who are our enemy in case you've forgotten?"

"I didn't believe that that was necessary Sir, as matters such as this fell under the purview of my position as the Director of the CIA..."

The DNI cut him off angrily. "No Gordon, _matters such as_ _this_ do _not_ fall under the purview of the Director of the Fucking CIA, and they _certainly_ don't fall under the purview of someone merely _acting_ in the role who's obviously incapable of understanding most of the issues that are involved here. This is not the first time that you've done something like this Gordon, and I personally explained the rules to you last time. You better find that chip and get it to me ASAP, because if Fulcrum has it, and they manage to access any important government information from it, you will be facing charges of treason, do you understand?"

Gordon looked like he was about to faint and whispered. "Yes, Sir."

* * *

The DNI snapped "Get out of my sight!" and waved at the door, but Chuck had been getting angrier and angrier as the discussion progressed and barked. " ** _Stay where you are!_** "

Both Gordon and the DNI froze at that, because neither of then were used to having orders barked at them with such command.

Meanwhile Chuck turned to Di, moderating his tone slightly. "General Beckman, you have been remiss in your duties."

Di was confused, because she had no idea where he was going with this. "In what way Mister Bartowski?"

"You managed to make Director Graham understand what wilfully putting the safety of the Intersect team at risk would cost the CIA, but you have made no effort to make Mister Gordon understand, when he obviously has a _far_ greater need to learn that lesson..."

"Who the hell do you..."

 ** _"Keep your mouth shut unless you're told to speak!"_**

Chuck addressed Auntie Di again. "Now I realise that getting it through to Mister Gordon will be a painfully arduous task General, and it will obviously take _far_ longer than it took with Director Graham, but Mister Gordon has already put the team at more risk than Director Graham did so it is patently necessary..."

He then turned to the DNI. "Has Mister Gordon been appraised of the penalties associated with wilfully putting the Intersect team at risk Sir?"

The DNI was beginning to look amused now. "Yes, I went through all the terms and conditions with him when he was instated as the _Acting_ Director of the CIA Mister Bartowski."

"And did he give an indication that he understood those terms and conditions Sir?"

"Yes, he signed to say that he had read and understood all the requirements."

Chuck nodded. "Thank you Sir."

With that he turned back to Auntie Di. "You see General? Mister Gordon _has_ been made aware of the penalties and signed a statement that he understands what is required, but you have not been imposing the appropriate penalties for his actions..."

"For a start... Mister Gordon made an unauthorised contact with Agent Walker and attempted to force her to participate in a mission that breached all of her conditions of employment with the Intersect team and unsettled her considerably, it is dangerous for an active agent to be in that state so he put her at risk, that's One Hundred Thousand Dollars in penalties. He also ordered and attempted to force a married woman to behave amorously on a mission against her will with both the mark and the lecherous pervert he sent to be her partner, who made it disgusting clear what he intended to do with her even though she was rejecting his advances quite strenuously, that's another Hundred Thousand in penalties. He then sent Sullivan quite openly into our team's cover business and base and risked exposing our entire covert operation, both personnel and base, to Fulcrum and everyone else... at this point we do not know that he did not. Even if we only include penalties for the core members of the Intersect team and our base of operations, that makes another Million Dollars. Sullivan made quite explicit and inappropriate advances to Agents Miller and Walker and other women at our cover business and caused considerable aggravation to both Major Casey and myself with his behaviour when we were in the midst of attempting to prepare for a critical mission, so even if we omit Agents Rizzo and Cunnings because they weren't directly involved in those altercations, there's another Five Hundred Thousand... Then Mister Gordon failed to order Sullivan to leave Los Angeles as the DNI clearly intended when he ordered Sullivan to stay away from our entire team and operation and Sullivan ignored the _direct_ order from the DNI to do so, interrupting a critical mission with enemy agents present and putting us all at risk, getting himself shot by the Fulcrum agent in the process... I'll go easy on the CIA and treat those as one instance, for another Seven Hundred Thousand... that makes Two Point Four Million in penalties for the _first_ instance of Mister Gordon interfering with the Intersect team and putting us all at risk..."

"Now... while Mister Gordon may try to claim that we were engaged by Director Bentley rather than himself for the second instance, it was on his orders that she did so and he withheld the same critical information from Director Bentley that he did from us, so the fault clearly lies with him. He deliberately withheld information from both the Intersect team and the foreign agent that he unlawfully engaged for an operation on US soil which put the entire team at risk, and deliberately fabricated a scenario whereby one of our agents would be forced to treat it as a seduction mission for what was in his words just unimportant test information, even though he told Director Bentley that what was on the chip was of critical importance and he informed the foreign agent, who's identity was deliberately withheld from us, that the people coming to him were enemy agents. He gave himself away earlier when he gloated that **_Agent Walker_** shouldn't have had difficulty completing the mission, as that made it _quite_ clear that he was **_specifically_** attempting to **_set Agent Walker up to be raped!_** That was an outright attack on one of our team's core members General, and when another core team member, Agent Miller, stepped in to do the mission because we and Director Bentley had been informed that the data to be recovered was of critical importance, she was mere seconds away from being raped when Agent Walker and I got into the room..."

Gordon went to angrily retort at that, but he shut up and obviously wet himself when Chuck snarled _**"Shut your mouth!"**_ at him, because he'd gotten a glimpse of the face many men had seen just before they died.

Chuck went on. "I am too aggravated to break everything down at this point General, so I'll round the penalties off, Seven Hundred Thousand for deliberately withholding significant information which put the entire Intersect team at risk and falsely claiming that the target held critical information to induce us to take the mission when as far as he knew it was just unimportant test information, and another Million for the harm and upset Agents Walker and Miller, their husbands and the rest of the team were subjected to because he **_deliberately_** falsified mission information to specifically create a scenario where two married female agents who are core members of our team, the one he was targeting and the one who accepted the mission in her place on the basis of the false claim that the mission objective was critical, were placed at risk of being forced to have sex on a mission against their will... so that is One Point Seven Million for the _second_ incident. All up that makes Four Point One Million Dollars in penalties that the CIA should be made to pay the Intersect team for Mister Gordon's actions to date... Plus whatever it costs to replace that chair he fouled when he wet himself of course..."

"I'd _like_ to add penalties for the pain and suffering caused to other members of the Intersect team by Mister Gordon deliberately setting up CIA operative Moses Noble to be killed by sending him into extremely dangerous situations that as the local CIA Station Chief he'd been forewarned to keep his people away from for information of no import in the Ghana coup in Nineteen Sixty Six, purely because he was intimidated by having a black war hero who was far smarter and more capable than him on his team... from what I've seen of Mister Gordon, he probably would have gotten a great deal of vindictive pleasure out of getting Mister Noble killed as well... I'd _like_ to penalise him for that, but I can't justify it under the Intersect team's penalties... I do believe that I should pass that information on to Mister Noble's grandsons though, as it wouldn't be fair to keep Mister Noble's family in the dark about why he was murdered... For that matter Agent Miller's husband is already quite upset about what almost happened to his wife because she replaced Agent Walker in the scenario Mister Gordon set up to get her raped and I expect that his anger will increase when he hears that the claims of the mission objective's criticality were falsified because that was the reason Agent Miller accepted the mission... And I know for a fact that Agent Walker's husband will want retribution for the fact that she was the intended victim of his scheme!... I'd suggest that you make sure your insurance is up to date Mister Gordon, because your actions have seriously upset some _very_ dangerous people..."

"I have to ask though Mister Gordon, what _did_ your fellow Klan members think of the fact that you were Langston Graham's **_boy_** from the early Eighties up until his recent death, and all those lengthy late night meetings you had with him? I would have thought the KKK would have had something to say about a Grand Dragon of the Klan being a black man's toy for twenty five years?"

He turned to the DNI, who was spluttering. "Oh I'm sorry Sir, I thought you would have known about that... Do you mean to tell me that Mister Gordon _hasn't_ declared the fact that he has been an active member of the Ku Klux Klan in Birmingham since he was a teenager in the late Forties, and is currently the Grand Dragon of the Klan in Alabama? I must admit that I found his relationship with Director Graham rather strange after fellow Klan members from Birmingham pulled strings to get him into the CIA after the Korean War and then got him promoted to Station Chief when he was in his twenties and hadn't done any significant field operations..."

"That's something else we've been wondering about that you can hopefully clear up for us Mister Gordon... Just how _did_ you get your Purple Heart, Bronze Star with Valor device and Combat Infantryman Badge in Korea, along with the Korean Service Medal with silver and bronze campaign stars, National Defence Service Medal for Korea, overseas service ribbon and overseas service bars, when Fort Benning records and pictures show that William Robert Gordon was _there_ for the entire time from when he joined up in late Fifty One until the end of the Korean War due to a series of unfortunate accidents he had when he was cleaning firearms... perhaps he should have refrained from cleaning firearms when he was so excited about finally getting to go over there and do his bit though because he always seemed to have an accident just before his group was shipped to Korea... and was discharged from the Army at Fort Benning straight after the war. It's so bizarre, because the William Robert Gordon at Fort Benning looked like you, had the same birthday and service number and came from the same part of Birmingham as you... But I can see from your expression that we aren't going to get to hear that story so..."

He looked back at the DNI. "Do you agree with my tally of the penalties that the CIA owes the Intersect team under the terms of engagement for the Intersect team's services Sir?"

The DNI nodded cautiously, because he was afraid of Chuck at that point too. "On the basis of the information presented... Which I'm quite sure is all correct! I agree with your figures and the fact that this amount is owed to the Intersect team Mister Bartowski."

"Thank you Sir, would it be possible to impose on you for assistance to have that amount transferred from the CIA's budget to the Intersect team's budget then please Sir? It's just that I do not see Mister Gordon willingly admitting liability for what he has done and that would make it very difficult to claim the funds from the CIA through the normal channels."

Mike nodded again. "I will see what I can do to get the funds transferred ASAP... One other thing though, is there any documentation available on the Ghana incident and Mister Gordon's faked CIA and War records?"

"Much of it was in the Intersect but there's still plenty in the CIA, Army and other systems and records, I will extract what I can and send it to you Sir."

"Thank you Mister Bartowski."

He looked at Gordon in disgust. "Get out Gordon!" He didn't have to be told twice and scampered out, but as he did so they discovered that he'd done more than just wet himself, so Mike called for someone to come and remove the chair he he'd been sitting on and spray air freshener around the room.

* * *

When the room was sealed and the controls in place, they brought up the President on the screen and the DNI asked. "Did you get all of that Sir?"

The President nodded disgustedly. "Yes Mike, how the hell did something like _that_ ever get into the position of Acting Director of the CIA?"

"I had the Intersect Team look into that after the last incident Mister President, would you like to know what they found?"

The President nodded and said "Yes, please" and Mike waved to Chuck. Chuck summarised it in about ten to fifteen minutes and then Mike explained how they'd tried to get rid of him after the last time but they couldn't get the support in the senate or Presidential veto they needed to do so, though if they could get enough proof to convince people that he had been an undisclosed KKK member for sixty years, as well as a coward who'd faked a hero's war record and had a genuine war hero on his team killed just because he was a better man and black, that would hopefully change.

Then the President raised the fact that Fulcrum obviously had the chip, and wanted to go over just what they'd get if they could decrypt it, as well as what was on the original and how secure it was. Once again, Chuck was called to give a summary of the contents of the two chips and how the original was secured.

With that out of the way, they went into the matter of the agreement Gordon had made with the Chief of the SIS and Mike gave the President the information he needed to dig up his predecessor's records of what had happened when Graham had made similar agreements with the Chief of the SIS. It was quickly agreed that the President would take the matter up with the British Prime Minister as a matter of priority and then they'd ship Barker back in disgrace, barring him from ever setting foot in the United States again.

When they'd addressed the more pressing matters, they went back to the bigger problem, the Acting Director of the CIA, but at a signal from Chuck, Di stepped in and suggested that it wouldn't safe to use an insecure link to discuss something that sensitive.

The President nodded thoughtfully. "Indeed General Beckman…. Mike, are you free to come over here now with the Intersect Team?"

The DNI nodded. "Of course Mister President."

"Good, use the Intersect people's tricks to get you in here without being noticed if you can, I'll clear my schedule for a while so we can discuss this properly..."

That made the DNI suspicious, how did the President know what they could do? "Yes Sir."

"Very good, and by the way... why don't you have that chair sent very publicly to the CIA with a note informing them that they have to replace it because Mister Gordon ruined it, to let them know what sort of _man_ they're working for..."

Mike couldn't help grinning at that. "Yes Sir, I'll have it sent over straight away!"

With that they cut the link and as ordered, the DNI put himself in the Intersect people's hands to get them into the White House quietly. The ease with which they did that frightened him, and he made a note to ask them to liaise with the White House Security Team to show them how to do a better job of locking down the White House.

That was how they all ended up in the Oval Office a little over twenty minutes later. The DNI's suspicions grew when the President didn't turn a hair when Diane pulled out and activated her special bug killers, but that was nothing compared to the shock he got when Chuck then walked up to the President and hugged him, calling him 'Uncle Jack', but Mike was no fool and something that had been niggling at him since the revelations in his office suddenly clicked into place.

He pointed at the President. " _This_ is the Uncle Jack you were talking about?"

Chuck nodded with a smile and Jack decided to have some fun. "What? Just what has Admiral Carmichael been saying about me?"

"Oh nothing bad sir! He was just telling me about the friends who helped his mother become a person rather than an ag..."

He broke off as he realised that he had been had, because the President burst out laughing. "He did make the distinction that it wasn't Agent Walker's useless father that he was discussing in such glowing terms."

Jack nodded with a smile. "Well I guess I should be grateful about that at least... have a seat Mike."

With that settled, they spent some time going through the Acting Director of the CIA's actions since he had been appointed after Graham died in the Intersect facility. Jack raised a point that they hadn't factored in last time, that they needed to have a suitable replacement available to step into the role if they did get rid of him, otherwise they could get something even worse in his place, as hard as that was to imagine.

Jack and Mike just looked confused when Sarah blurted out "Aunt Jane!" even though Di, Chuck and Carina agreed emphatically, so Sarah got embarrassed and tried to explain.

"Sorry, I'm referring to the current Director of the National Clandestine Service, Jane Bentley, Mister President..." Jack held up a finger at that and she smiled. "Sorry, Uncle Jack, Ms Bentley was my handler through most of my training up until I finished at Harvard. She also became my formal CIA mentor after I'd graduated from Harvard and became a full agent. I was living with her while I was at Harvard and her cover there was as my Aunt, so I got used to calling her Aunt Jane. I believe that if you review her records you'll agree that she's the most capable person to assume the role of the Director of the CIA, and I am confident that she has far more integrity than anyone else at that level in the CIA as well."

Di looked at Chuck, but he just waved to her, as she had the rank and seniority to be listened to, even Uncle Jack knew her as the one who was running their operations. "I agree Jack, I cannot think of anyone else with the seniority and reputation needed to get them into the position who could handle the reins of the CIA with the competence and integrity that Director Bentley can."

Jack was looking thoughtful and making notes, but he surprised Mike when he said. "But what about Pam Landry?" He held up a hand to stop her when Di went to answer. "Chuck, you fobbed this matter onto your Auntie Di but I know that between the Intersect and your own natural ability and experience, you have all the relevant the facts in your head on most matters, would you give me a full run down on Director Bentley, your own impressions of her, and why you regard her as a better choice for this than Auntie Pam please?"

Chuck nodded and launched into a forty minute description of Jane Bentley's career, finishing with the reasons why he regarded her to be 'the best man for the job' (which included the fact that Auntie Pam wasn't well enough known or senior enough for them to get her placed the DCIA's role over the other side's candidates, but Auntie Pam would make the best replacement for Director Bentley as the DNCS with her recommendation). When he was done, Jack thanked him and nodded thoughtfully, he spent a minute thinking and then said. "Mike, can you get Director Bentley in here for a meeting here ASAP please? You will need to stress that no one in the CIA can know where she's going of course and that these guys will escort her in so that she isn't seen coming in."

The DNI just nodded and called Jane, stressing the speed and secrecy requirements. They filled in the time with what was essentially a family discussion, and that discussion helped him make more sense of a lot of the apparently inexplicable things these people could do.

When they escorted Jane in, Jack started with a run down of the issues they were having with the Acting Director of the CIA, calling in the others to fill in details where required, but that didn't take long as she'd been involved in many of the key events, then Sarah told her what they hadn't been prepared to say on a video conference into the CIA, that the reason they were so angry about the British agent's attitude and the fact that he'd almost raped Carina was that she was Auntie Di's long lost first daughter, _and_ Sarah's half sister. When she'd had a chance to recover from the shock of that news, Jack launched into the primary purpose of this meeting.

"Director Bentley, it has been made quite clear to me that we need to replace the Acting Director of the CIA with someone who possesses the competence, intelligence and integrity needed to hold a role of this nature at the earliest opportunity. You have been proposed by Agent Walker, General Beckman and Mister Bartowski as the only person currently in a position to take on that role who meets all of the criteria and Mister Bartowski, and the others, have provided us with sufficient information to prove their case. So the question here is, will you accept the duties and responsibilities associated with the role of the Director of the CIA if you are called to fill the role?"

She just stared at him for a minute or more, not able to believe what she was hearing, so he asked again. "Director Bentley? Will you accept this role if it is offered to you?"

That broke through her daze and she responded. "Oh, I'm sorry Mister President, I was just having a bit of a hard time believing that I wasn't dreaming. Yes Sir, if you chose to offer the role of the Director of the CIA to me, it would be my honour to accept, and I would do my utmost to fulfil the duties and responsibilities associated with the role!"

He nodded with a smile. "Great, this obviously won't happen overnight, Mike has told us what happened last time they tried to get rid of the man, which tells us that he unfortunately still seems to have influential people behind him for some reason. That being said, we'll set everything in place so that when we _do_ manage to get rid of him, Mike and I can get you inducted as the Acting Director effective immediately, then we'll have your confirmation pushed through the senate. It will be good to have someone that the nation can trust sitting in that chair..."

He stopped and looked at Chuck for a moment and then added. "It would be a good idea to keep yourself ready to move quickly though, because people in the CIA will be quite unhappy when they discover that he's just cost them over Four Million in penalties to the Intersect team... Major Casey is likely to want to kill him when he finds out that as far as Gordon knew, the intel his wife was almost raped for was worthless, and we've just discovered that Gordon intentionally set up Colonel Noble and Colonel Johnson's grandfather to be killed in Ghana in Sixty Six, just because he was a black war hero who made him feel inferior, so they, their mother and Colonel Johnson's son are likely to want to kill Gordon as well... As are the KKK when they find out that Gordon was Graham's toy, as Chuck put it, for twenty five years."

They had to wind the meeting up there, as Jack had already been tied up with these matters for a few hours that day, they didn't know how he had managed to free up that much time on the spur of the moment like that. Jane had to get back to Langley before anyone started asking questions about where she was too, but she managed to have a few minutes with Sarah before she rushed off. Di came with them to the airport so that she could have a little more time with Carina before they flew back to Los Angeles, but before they left, Chuck asked Di what the DNI had been referring to when he said something about seeing them soon. She tried to divert at first, but gave up and just said that she wasn't allowed to talk about that yet.

As they weren't going to get anything else out of her, they let it go at that and headed back to Los Angeles, though Chuck and Sarah spent most of the trip working, because matters had been coming in that needed to be addressed ever since they left Los Angeles ten hours before.

* * *

 **A/N: I've borrowed from part of the Ryanverse here, as Jack Ryan was inducted as President at the start of 2009 in that 'verse, and having an intelligence savvy President who's part of the family will help the story line.**

 **I've also borrowed parts of the background of his previous time in government, but in this world he was made the National Security Advisor in 1996 and then the Vice President in 1999 when the incumbent Vice President was forced to resign, and it was a bomb that killed the President and most of the Cabinet which elevated him to President for the last eighteen months of the term, rather than a 747 crashing into the building (as I would hope that they would have tightened up security controls on airliners after someone did that the first time).**

 **After the debacles that plagued the President's administration from 2001-2008, culminating in his Vice President and National Security Advisor remaining in office after they committed _treason_ , the people realised that the smear campaign that the current administration had used to discredit the reluctant President Ryan back in the 2000 electoral campaign had in fact been just that, so Jack was elected with a strong majority in 2008.**

 **NB: This also means that Jack was the National Security Advisor who was tearing strips off Graham and his cronies in the after action debriefing for the military auction in Mexico.**

 ** **President Ryan also kept John Michael "Mike" McConnell on as the DNI, because while he may not have been the most brilliant man in the intelligence business, they all trusted his integrity and judgement and he had a stronger grasp of intelligence matters than anyone else being proposed for the role. Mike was already getting his replacement prepared to take over the role  
****


	19. Run, Fatboy, Run

**Okay, a few more minor changes to the back story... I decided that they wouldn't leave Sarah's big sister at risk so the double wedding became a triple wedding. Buck and Phoebe's fathers were war heroes from the Battle of the Bulge who were grabbed for the OSS, and then the CIA when it was created. Gordon was a KKK member for sixty years with a faked war record who sent Phoebe's father to be killed in the coup in Ghana in 1966 because having a black war hero who was better than him in every way under him intimidated him and Chuck brought all of this out when they were dragging him over the coals about the mission with Barker where he was setting Sarah up.**

 **There are some subjects depicted here that some people will find unpleasant.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, this isn't the real world and it's not a Disney Princess story.**

* * *

Of course, Chuck had to explain on the plane that he was _mainly_ implying that Gordon's relationship with Graham was sexual to get Gordon wound up. Sarah didn't miss the inference.

"What do you mean _mainly_?"

"Since we found out about Rick I've been looking into Graham's background quite a bit. I haven't found anything to indicate that he was gay, or even bi…. in fact I believe that I've identified at least three or four probable siblings of Rick…."

She filed the fact that he was obviously avoiding saying something there away to take up when they were alone, but he went on.

"But he's the type who uses sex to dominate people and I don't see him letting social mores or his own preferences get in the way of him forcefully taking Gordon every now and then to make sure that he never forgot that Graham owned him _completely_. That would almost certainly keep a coward like Gordon totally submissive to him. For the most part, I believe that those visits to Graham's home would have mostly been so that Graham could give him his instructions away from the office where someone else might hear. From what we've seen of Billy Bob, I expect the reason he was such a frequent visitor was probably because Graham had to keep telling him everything over and over until it sunk in."

They all nodded at that, because it made sense, but as soon as they were alone in their room at home Sarah made him tell her what he'd been hiding from the others. "Just remember that none of this has been confirmed as yet, alright?"

Sarah nodded, wondering what was big enough to make him dance around it like this.

"Okay, from what I dug up, I believe that Graham was born as Leroy Johnson in North Carolina in Nineteen Forty Seven. Leroy disappeared soon after his parents and older sister and her fiancé, a promising high school footballer by the name of Otis Jefferies, were killed when they were run off the road on the way home from a local dance and their car was set alight in Sixty Three….. Apparently Leroy was thrown out of the car and knocked out when it crashed and the ones who set fire to it didn't realise that he was laying off in the bushes. People said that the _accident_ had been retaliation for his father beating up the sons of some prominent local Klan members who had knocked Otis over the head and were trying to force Leroy's sister into their car, and those white boys apparently died in a fire caused by a still explosion around the time Leroy disappeared. This is where it gets strange though, because a few months later, the late Otis Jefferies turned up to start at Penn State, where he'd been awarded a football scholarship. Anyway, in June Sixty Four Otis Jefferies was named as the father on the birth certificate of one Jane Roberta Bentley in New York, but by then he'd _also_ been named on wanted posters for the murders of two of his white team mates, one of whom had been the son of a senator who reportedly objected to him getting his little sister pregnant. I'm pretty sure that the so called _murders_ were really Otis killing two of the white boys who were trying to kill _him_ in self defence, but the people running things back then would never admit anything like that. The sister must have gotten rid of the baby because her family made a point of parading her through every major social function for the next six months to show that she _wasn't_ pregnant. Otis Jefferies disappeared straight after the senator's son was killed, but twenty year old Army Private Langston Graham arrived in Vietnam in April Nineteen Sixty Four, and he was so brutally effective in combat that even as a black man he'd received a battlefield commission, two Bronze Stars, Purple Heart and a promotion to First Lieutenant by the time he was co opted into the CIA in June Sixty Nine. He was formally discharged from the Army and returned to the States in March Seventy Two….."

"So it's quite possible that your Aunt Jane is actually Rick's older half sister, especially as I can see Graham's intelligence and drive and strength to do whatever needs to be done in her….. but considering how Rick reacted to the news of who his father was I'm not sure that it wouldn't be kinder _not_ to tell her.… So that's why I've been keeping it to myself."

Sarah just started at him in shock, but inside her mind was racing a mile a minute as she put everything together… and found that she agreed with Chuck. Yes, now that he'd pointed it out she could see a lot of Graham in Aunt Jane, like Rick she had his intelligence, drive and toughness, but her upbringing had made her a far better person than him. She saw Chuck's point though, normally people would want to know who their parents were… but she'd even take her own bastard of a father over being told that she was Graham's daughter.

* * *

It didn't take long for Chuck to send all the information about Gordon to the DNI, and the Three and a Half Million had been transferred from the CIA budgets to the Intersect Project within a week.

Tracking down the CIA tech Daniel Ramsey who had disappeared soon after he told the CIA that the chip supposedly stolen from the Intersect facility only had useless test data on it took a little longer, but he'd been sure that he'd managed to fool the CIA about what was on it (well, he _had_ ), so he wasn't making much effort to cover his tracks when he took off with the money he got from selling Fulcrum the test data they asked for. He only wished he'd lived it up more on the money while he could, because he didn't doubt that little General who told him that he'd never see daylight again... She'd been remarkably scary for someone that small.

No-one ever discovered that it was _them_ who had created the caricature of a small Pit Bull with Di's face barking at what was obviously a terrified Billy Bob Gordon with a steaming pile of crap behind him holding out a big wad of cash to the Pit Bull, but that caricature did the rounds in the Intelligence community and especially the CIA for longer than the picture of John handcuffed naked to the bed had. Complaints from random people in the CIA that they'd had to pay the Intersect Project over Four Million and replace one of the DNI's chairs because of Gordon quickly got around the intelligence community, and everyone took that as confirmation of what the caricature was saying.

What Chuck didn't bring the others into though was that he'd decided to ensure that they got Gordon this time so he'd started leaking key elements of Gordon's story to the press around the country over a period of months. He did this in articles outing long standing Klan members, then following them up with other articles about 'strange bedfellows', leading with a front page picture that was a montage of hundreds of photos of Gordon leaving Graham's place late at night in a tousled state (with a few big enough to clearly identify the two men) but leaving it to others to ask whether this man that the evidence said had been in the Klan for over sixty years was just a close friend of his black boss who had spent a _lot_ of time with him after hours, or whether there had been more to it.

He had fun playing devil's advocate, posting the report from Gordon in response to the query about why he'd sent Moses Noble to be killed needlessly in the Ghana Coup, following that with reports of the Two Moes' courageous actions in the Battle of the Bulge which had saved the Allies from being attacked from the rear by the Germans, questions about Gordon's war record and other, apparently more incriminating photos of Gordon and Graham. The longer this went on, the more support Gordon lost, but his core support structure remained intact, so someone obviously had plans for him.

* * *

As the DNI had said, they were all called back to Washington in March. The fact that they were each handed uniforms that had been specifically tailored for them and told to go and change into them when they arrived was a sure sign that something was going on.

When they had all returned to the DNI's office in uniform, they were informed that plans were currently in play which would require all of them to hold military ranks at the requisite levels for them to be able to effectively command cross service groups for upcoming operations, so it was the start of that process that they were attending to today. They were also informed that they were being awarded any medals that had been withheld from them in the past to strengthen their positions with the military, and help gain the respect of the military people that they would be commanding.

With that, they were bundled off to the White House for a meeting in the Oval Office with the President, Secretaries of Defense, Navy, Air Force and Army, plus the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a few other key top brass from the Services. With a minimum of fuss, they processed the promotions for United States Navy Rear Admiral Charles Carmichael, United States Army Brigadier General Sarah Carmichael, United States Air Force Lieutenant General Diane Beckman, United States Air Force Colonel Robin Cunnings, United States Navy Captain Carina Miller and United States Marine Corps Colonel Zondra Rizzo.

Once the promotions were done, a number of medals were awarded to each of them (quite a number for some) for which the recommendations had been in the system for some time without being progressed by the various services' commands.

Then they were formally inducted into their roles as the commanders or deputy commanders of the various groups and deputy directors of the Spectre group and those parts, like the Intersect Project, which were significant enough to have their own directors.

There were a few looks from the brass who only knew John as Major John Casey when they heard the name and rank he was being inducted into his role as commander of the primary special operations group as, but this was quickly explained away by the fact that while he'd gone back to his real name, Alexander John Coburn, after he joined the Spectre group, they still used Major John Casey as his public identity.

Once all the formalities had been completed, they all had to have their photo ops with the President and other dignitaries, and after that they changed out of their uniforms, packed up and flew back to Los Angeles.

* * *

Their next big operation, in April 2009, actually came out of Chuck keeping up his nerd cred, as he had been looking into Roark Instruments' imminent Roark Instruments Operating System (or RIOS, as it was generally known) release like most nerds, but that had triggered Intersect flashes relating to the fact that RIOS was somehow going to be used by Fulcrum as a distribution mechanism for targeted malware that was intended to collect sensitive government information. While they were discussing this, Chuck, Ellie and the others noticed that Stephen was becoming more withdrawn and agitated than he'd been for a while, but they were tied up working out what they needed to do to address the problem before RIOS was released and just put it down to him being away from Red Mountain for too long and needing to go back to take up his sessions with Dr Dreyfus again.

When they tried to hack into the Roark Instruments systems, they found that the security was rather stronger than they expected. Chuck told Auntie Di and the others that it wasn't likely that they'd be able to get past the defences to see what was on the systems without setting off alarms from the intrusion detection systems in the time frame that they had available, so they had to accept his position that the only way to get what they needed in time would for him to go in and get access from inside. Sarah flat out rejected _any_ suggestion that he would be going in there alone, but she wasn't at all happy when he agreed with her, then pointed out that, as with when they were recovering Leslie, the only person who could pull off going in with him was Anna, as the two of them were the only ones in the correct age bracket who had the necessary qualifications and ability to fight their way out of trouble.

Sarah dragged Chuck back to the Keep to 'talk' about this, but she eventually gave in to the logic of his argument and stopped shouting, so while they were up there they went into their workroom and Chuck brought up the available jobs at RI. As Chuck had expected, coming up to the release of something as big as RIOS, RI was clamouring for qualified people to address the thousand and one issues that were coming out as the deadline drew closer, so he just put in applications for two of the jobs. He wasn't too surprised when they both got calls within an hour to come in for interviews immediately.

They'd both remade themselves into the expected image (going back to the look they used for dealing with customers in their Piranha and Lotus jobs), and headed straight to RI in the cheapest looking cars in the garage. Their 'interviews' were nothing but quick 'rubber stamp' sessions and they were asked to start immediately, because RI was getting desperate. They could quite understand that, as the RIOS release was less than three days away but it was still full of bugs and while some of them were quite good, the vast majority of the people at RI were mediocre at best, and were closer to incompetent to be brutally honest.

* * *

As soon as they were inside the Roark complex, Chuck and Anna started attaching the remote access devices to the computer networks and security systems and piping out the RIOS source code for Jeff and the others to start wading through it, they also started hacking into the systems and sending out copies of any relevant information on the systems, but they had a problem... They couldn't find anything really incriminating on the RI systems. With the Intersect intel that there was malware inside RIOS that specifically targeted Government systems, they had been expecting to find plenty of evidence of Fulcrum or other nefarious activities on the RI systems and they couldn't understand why they didn't.

While Chuck and Anna were working on the inside, Jeff and the rest of the tech team, including Stephen and Leslie, were searching for malware in the RIOS source, and they were getting as frustrated as Chuck and Anna were, as they couldn't find any. By the time the day of the release came around, they were starting to wonder whether the Intersect flash had been wrong, but they'd organised invites to the RIOS release event anyway for Sarah, Carina, Zondra and Rick, plus Mei, Sydney, Lexie, Vinnie and Javier, all with their appearances changed enough to stop them attracting too much attention.

As well as the rest of their efforts, Chuck and the others were wading through blueprints, utility usage and everything else for the Roark Instruments buildings, and Chuck was getting more and more aggravated, as he _knew_ that something was wrong here, but he just couldn't put his finger on it.

It didn't help that the deeper they delved into Roark Instruments, the more irrational Stephen was getting, going on and on about how Ted Roark had stolen his designs and that was what he'd built his empire and fortune on. Mary explained that Roark had been one of Graham's minions who'd been added to the Omaha Project over Stephen's objections, and that he'd always been making advances to her, until she'd eventually broken his wrist for trying to stick his hand up her skirt. After she'd described in quite explicit detail exactly what she'd do to him if he ever came near her or any of the other women associated with the project again, he'd scampered off to hide whenever he saw her, like the spineless rat that he was. That still didn't explain what Stephen was going on about now though, and Stephen wouldn't say anything other than moan and carry on about it.

Most of their remote access devices also contained payloads of particularly virulent malware that would corrupt and wipe out all of the code and storage on any system attached to the networks, and they'd taken a leaf from the book of those who created the Trojan cipher that was used to wipe out the Intersect Facility and added the mechanisms to get through gateways into any other systems connected to the networks. The purpose of this was so that, if they found any evidence that the expected malware _was_ in RIOS, and they couldn't stop its release, any of them inside the building at the time of the release could activate the Armageddon devices from their phones. The mechanisms were also coded so that it didn't matter how many signals they received, all it took was for one to get through. When the activation signal was received they'd drop any connections to the outside world and release the malware, wiping out and data and eradicating any and all systems within Roark Instruments.

On the morning of the release, they were scanning the new copies of the RIOS code that they'd extracted and they _finally_ found the proof that they were after, because the version that was complied from the 'clean' source had been replaced by one which included malware overnight, even though the source was still free of malware. Jeff and the others jumped onto reverse engineering the code to find out what the malware was meant to do while Chuck tried to get to Ted Roark to get him to stop the release until it could be cleaned up.

As the release time drew closer, Chuck was becoming increasingly suspicious of what was going on in RI, because he kept getting blocked from talking to Roark. Eventually, about ten minutes before the release was meant to happen, he threw caution to the wind and physically pushed his way through to Roark. "Mr Roark, Ted, you have to stop the release! I was just looking at the code and there's a huge amount of malware in it!"

At that moment, any doubts he may have had about his suspicions went out the window, because the affable, bumbling buffoon disappeared. Roark quickly looked around to ensure that no-one but his people were in earshot, and then barked in a cold, unemotional voice. "Got rid of him before anyone else hears what he's saying! Do it quietly though, and make sure that there's no evidence linking him back to us!"

Two of the guards grabbed him and started hustling him out. Chuck flashed on them when they grabbed him, identifying them as Fulcrum, and kicking himself swept a look over the rest of the group around Roark himself, getting confirmation from the Intersect (presumably Fulcrum's) that nearly all of them were Fulcrum. He presumed that he'd just missed the triggers on the others to confirm their part in it, and while Roark wasn't in the Intersect as Fulcrum, there was enough in the flashes on the others to confirm that he was definitely part of it, and from what he was seeing, Roark was very high in the organisation, of not the boss.

As soon as they were out of sight from anyone else, Chuck took out the two guards who were dragging him away and contacted Sarah, Anna and the others to get out and activate the Armageddon devices as soon as they were out of the building, because they only had five minutes to stop the release! He lied to Sarah, telling her that he was currently leaving the building by another route, because he was going after Roark. He was putting his money on the fact that Roark was the key to bringing down Fulcrum, and he wasn't about to pass up their best chance of grabbing him.

He took the weapons, access cards and anything else of use or identification from the bodies, stashed them out of sight in an empty room and headed back to where he'd last seen Roark as quickly as he could without attracting attention. The others activated the Armageddon devices before he got all the way back there, so he stopped long enough to activate the infrared mode of the imaging glasses that he was wearing to let him see where he was going. Even with the glasses though, having the lights out and smoke everywhere from all the fires started by wiring shorting out made it hard to see anything.

When he got back to where he'd last seen Roark, waiting to go up on stage, he saw Roark being hustled away from the stage, it wasn't hard to identify him, as a six foot four fat man in a Hawaiian shirt tended to stand out. Chuck kneecapped the man in front of him to trip him up and slow him down, but these guards must have been Roark's elite, because they identified where the shot came from and were sending a hail of lead in his direction almost immediately. There wasn't much Chuck could do other than watch the guards hustle Roark through a door which somehow still seemed to have active security systems, and as there was no point in shooting the guards once Roark was gone, Chuck just slipped away.

He did stop to drag the two bodies out of the room where he'd stashed them and stage them so that they'd appear to have died as a result of the explosions and fires before heading for the foyer. Chuck had an advantage over the hundreds of panicking nerds who were trying to find their way out of the building, in that he could at least partially see where he was going. As he was heading for the door, he tucked the two handguns he'd taken from the guards into the back of his jeans and pulled his shirt down over them and when he got close to the foyer, started pretending to feel his way along like everyone else.

When he came out of the building though, he knew that he was in trouble, as his wife had heard the fire fight over his mic _after_ he'd supposedly left the building, so she was looking for him and saw him come out the same way they had. Given that he told them that he'd already left by another exit over ten minutes before, _before_ they'd activated the Armageddon devices, she wasn't at all happy with him. She didn't give him any chance to make excuses, as soon as he came up to her, she slapped him hard enough to loosen his teeth and stormed off. He hadn't had a chance to recover from that before Anna did the same, but from the other side (Sarah was right handed, while Anna was left handed), so he was standing there reeling as they left.

He didn't get any sympathy from anyone but Sydney and Javier, because the everyone close to the family sided with the girls' position. Chuck could understand it too, but he'd believed that he couldn't afford to let their best chance to grab Roark slip through his fingers without trying to get him. Zondra and Vinnie took his keys and pushed him into the car he came in to drive him back to El Castillo, but didn't speak to him on the drive home.

* * *

When they got to El Castillo, Chuck thanked them and then went straight up to the Keep, as he knew that Sarah would have gone up there to be alone. He was slapped another three or four times over the next fifteen to twenty minutes, but her tears and pain hurt him more. When they'd finally accepted each other's positions and kissed and made up, they went down to the Dungeon to initiate a videoconference with Auntie Di and the others to fill them in on Roark's role in Fulcrum and confirm that they'd stopped RIOS going out.

While they were talking though, Chuck suddenly started swearing. They were all shocked at the language he was using, because not even Ellie, who'd talked to him nearly every day of his life, had ever heard him using _those_ words. Eventually Sarah shouted at him enough to get through, and asked what he was swearing about?

Chuck brought up the utilities usage and heat images of the Roark facility on the big screen, but while Anna, Jeff, Pete and Leslie could understand what they were seeing, he had to explain it to the others. " _T_ _his_ is what wasn't making sense before. I don't know why I couldn't see it! It's so fucking obvious!"

Sarah squeezed his hand. "Chuck, what the hell are you talking about?"

He pointed at some charts on the screen "That!"

He could see from their faces that they weren't getting it.

"I'm pointing right at it!….." Still nothing.

"The power usage before was twice what could be explained by the public portion of Roark industries. The power usage for all this is almost zero now….." Indicating the RI offices and server rooms on the plans. "but RI is still using nearly half the power it was before."

Chuck indicated a spot on the plans "There was an active security door here that Roark was taken through when I was trying to grab him. All the access systems, computers and everything else in here" (indicating the Roark Instruments offices and server rooms again) "were fried by the Armageddon devices, so that shouldn't have been possible. But even though I thought it was strange, I didn't stop to question it. I'm such an idiot, everything in this part" (drawing a circle around the area on the other side of that door) "must have _totally_ separate power, networks, everything. And look here…" He pointed to another screen with a strong heat image. "While the RI offices are only showing a few hot spots where the fires are, _that_ area obviously has a lot of serious equipment running, my money's on large computers, in fact….. Fuck! That's an Intersect computer, I'm sure of it! Nothing else is configured quite like that. We're going to have to get in there tonight, before they have time to clear out."

Sarah and the others were shaking their heads, as what he was saying was obvious now he'd pointed it out. Well... not the Intersect part but they didn't doubt that he was right about that either.

* * *

They spent the next hour or so laying out the plans for that night's operation there, but everyone was focussed on the planning session so no-one noticed that Stephen had disappeared while they were talking. Afterwards, Mary was tied up in the activities to get the raid organised, so she just presumed that he was working on something in the labs or sulking.

Given that they expected those elite guards that Chuck had a run in with to be in there, they were taking a team of two dozen of their best into the facility, with another two dozen out at the vans with Ellie, as the overall commander of the operation, and the tech team. They'd also have FBI strike teams on call to provide additional support if they ran into serious trouble. Of all of them, Chuck and Bai could be the most stealthy, so it was decided that they'd slip in first, to try and attach the remote access devices to the security system so that Anna and the others could take it over. Mary wasn't at all happy that she was relegated to the backup team, but she had to concede that if Roark saw her, it could blow the operation.

After the sun went down and emergency services had packed it in for the day, they went in. The passes that Chuck took from the two guards got them in the door, and they instantly checked for cameras. When Chuck saw the camera sweeping back towards them, he grabbed Bai and pulled her into the dead zone for the cameras, then hoisted her up to stand on his shoulders when she had what she needed to deal with it in her hands. Standing on Chuck's shoulders, Bai bared the wiring for the camera and attached the remote access device, staying there until Anna announced that they had control of the cameras and then hopping down so that Chuck could do the same with the security and access systems. Anna's confirmation that she had control was to unlock the door, so Chuck pulled it open to let the others in.

Anna and the tech team prevented them showing up on the security monitors and warned them whenever anyone was coming as they swept the facility carefully, adding remote access/malware devices when they found good locations to attach them. As the remote access devices became active, Anna and the others started getting into the systems to copy off what they could. Their first priority was the Intersect files, but some were working on getting whatever else they could off the systems at the same time. They still wanted to know where the hell Stephen had gone to, because he was supposed to be working on this as well, but he'd disappeared when they were ready to go.

The directive that they were going with was to put down anyone who attacked them, but capture anyone who they could extract information from if possible. So far, everyone they'd seen had gone for their guns and/or tried to raise an alarm, so they were put down with shots from the VALs as quickly and quietly as possible.

* * *

When Chuck heard Roark's voice, he signalled the others to be quiet as they came up on his position. He worked his way forward until he could to run a camera around the corner to see what Roark up to, but that showed him another problem, because Roark was talking to Stephen, and they had over twenty heavily armed guards around them. Seeing Chuck's reaction, Sarah knew that they had a new problem, so she came forward to see what had set him off. When the others heard her whisper of "Oh fuck no!" over the radio, they knew that they were in trouble.

Chuck checked the area around the corner to scope out what cover was available and then they retreated down the corridor far enough to fill the others in on the plan of attack. While the others were looking at the recording from the camera, Chuck quietly called to his mother and sister in the van, whispering. "I found Dad, he's in here and Roark's got him."

The others grinned at his mother's response. "Get him back safe please Sweetie, so I can kill him!"

When the sniggers died down, Chuck pointed out the points of cover that existed around the corner and they agreed who was going where, and when they were ready, they moved. Some ran to their cover, some slid across the floor, but they were all engaging targets in seconds. The problem was that the guards around Roark and Stephen were geared up for war and they were all wearing heavy ballistic armour and helmets, so while the impact of the shots from the VALs staggered them, they weren't enough to take them down at over a hundred yards.

Roark proved again that the bumbling buffoon was only a facade, because he reacted in seconds, grabbing Stephen and using him as cover as he dragged him through the door behind them with about half a dozen of the guards.

As soon as they saw that shots to the torso weren't taking the guards down, they'd all shifted their aim to face and neck shots. The fifteen or so who stayed to fight a rear guard action all went down within twenty to thirty seconds after that, but they'd given Roark enough time to get out and manually seal the door behind him to slow them down.

They wasted ten seconds while Anna tried to release the door then Chuck barked "Blow it!" A few charges took out the primary attachment points then a kick from Chuck sent the remains of one half down the hall. As they ran for the next door, the others looked at each other, thinking about what it would feel like to be on the receiving end of a kick like that and promising themselves not to spar with Chuck again until after he'd calmed down.

They went through the next few manually locked doors the same way and then they ran into a problem… as they now had _two_ manually locked doors in front of them because Roark had obviously sent at least one of his men down another corridor to muddy the trail. Chuck just barked for both of them to be blown and told John to take half of the team down one corridor while he and Sarah took the other.

When his group exited the building and came under fire from guards under cover, Chuck realised that he'd chosen the wrong door and called it through to John. Mary quickly got Chuck's location and took off running with a fire squad of their people, trying to take the guards who were keeping them pinned down alive in case they could tell them anything useful.

John came out at a loading bay that was empty, but he could smell vehicle exhaust so he knew that they'd just missed them. He called for Anna to bring up the video from the loading bay to tell them what they were in. Anna left the others to keep sucking off whatever was on the Fulcrum systems while she brought up the security footage from the loading bay. She could confirm that Roark and Stephen got into one of the two SUVs that left, and give a good estimate of make, model and colour, but the resolution on the cameras in there was far too low to read the license plates, the images just couldn't be cleaned up enough to read what they said.

By this time, Chuck had reached the van and he took over one of the stations, hacking into traffic cam and security cam systems to locate those two SUVs. He was the maestro with this stuff, so Anna left him to it and went back to ensuring that they got everything they could off the Fulcrum systems before they wiped out the facility. The rest of the team had already gone back in to collect whatever physical evidence and external storage that they could find (as well as the cipher from the Intersect computer) and start setting thermite and explosive charges on all of the computing and storage systems.

Once they'd collected whatever they could off the systems, they would trigger the Armageddon devices to wipe out any code and data on the systems and fry what they could, then set off the thermite and explosive charges. Once they'd finished, there would be nothing recoverable left of the Fulcrum systems, which with any luck would mean that they'd destroyed the last of the Intersect systems.

While this was going on, Chuck had picked up the trail of the two SUVs and traced them to where they changed vehicles. By then he'd hacked into the satellite imagery systems and was using them to get visibility of areas where there was no traffic or security camera footage. That was how he identified what vehicles they transferred into, and saw that Roark still had his father with him. The vehicles split up again to muddy the trail more, but Chuck handed off the SUV with two of the guards in it to someone else to track while he stayed with the one that had Roark and his father in it.

He'd also taken over a predator drone on a training exercise by the time they swapped vehicles, as he expected that they'd be heading out of town, so he was following them with the drone and the satellites when they did so.

When Anna and the others finished getting what they could out of the systems, she looked at Chuck, but didn't want to interrupt him while he was tracking Roark and his father, especially as the vicious way he was muttering "Run, Fatboy, Run!" was a little disturbing (it was also ruining what had been a fun movie for her), so she turned to Ellie.

Ellie nodded and said. "Wipe it out!"

Anna told the others to cut their links into the facility and then activated the Armageddon devices, waiting a minute before triggering the thermite charges, and then another minute to trigger the explosive charges, then she sent the team back in to confirm that everything had in fact been destroyed.

Chuck was still tied up with controlling the drone, satellites and traffic cameras as the SUV with Roark and his father was heading north, so Sarah fastened the seatbelt across her husband's lap and then took the wheel, as they had to get away before anyone came to investigate the explosions in the building and she didn't trust anyone else to drive smoothly enough not to disturb him. Chuck had kissed her distractedly and murmured "Love you" as she strapped him into his seat, and when she softly called "Are you ready Baby?" he nodded, saying "Yes thanks Honey" without looking away from the screens, determined to ensure he didn't lose that fucking SUV.

* * *

When they were back in El Castillo's parking garage, they plugged the van into El Castillo's power and systems and left Chuck, Sarah and Mary there, they knew that Ellie and John would handle everything else while they were tracking Stephen. They watched as the SUV passed through Barstow and suddenly went off road near an abandoned drive in, following a trail up the arroyo behind the drive in until concealed doors opened to allow it to enter a tunnel. The tunnel only showed up on the heat sensors once the doors were closed again. The Fulcrum Intersect identified this location at Black Rock, one of their main fall back bases.

With Stephen's location locked down, Chuck moved the Predator back to where it was supposed to be and released control of it to the Air Force again after wiping the logs of any record of where it had been or what it had been recording. He set the satellite imagery to keep recording the Black Rock site, then they headed down to the Dungeon, to go to the bathroom and then pick up where they left off.

Once he was ensconced in the operations centre, Chuck identified a satellite with the ground penetrating radar and other imaging systems he needed that was close enough to serve their purpose and took it over to move it into the correct orbit to capture the Black Rock site properly. He also organised for their main strike force to fly in from Red Mountain in the Ospreys, Homer, Bart and Nelson and meet them at a location close to Black Rock at 0230.

He suggested that the others try to get some rest while he planned the strike, but he couldn't get Sarah to go any further than the couch behind him to take a nap while he worked. Ellie brought him food and coffee and helped him, as she shared his ability to get by with little rest, and wouldn't be part of the team going in either. They specified the control and transport vans and equipment that were to be brought in from Red Mountain, and arranged for the Shadows and Bunker Busters (there had been plenty of Bunker Busters in what they took from the facility near Rostov An Don) to be prepped so that they could wipe out the site after they exited the bunker.

They'd have two control vans on the ground and Ellie would direct the operation from one of them, with Anna, Jeff, Pete, Skip, Jimmy and Lizzy handling the technical support. The support teams would handle things on the surface and provide backup while they went in. If things got too hairy down there, they would join in. Chuck, Sarah, John, Charly, Phoebe, Bry, Bai and Mary would each go in with three from the Cinders team, as they'd have to search the facility to locate and extract Stephen and Roark, as well as any other captives and intel they found, because when everyone was out, that site was getting hit with enough bunker busters to ensure that nothing survived.

Everyone was up, fed, watered and briefed in plenty of time to head up to the meeting site in Rocky, Ricky and Roxy. When they got there they filled the others in on the rest of the details, going over the ground piercing radar and other imagery that Chuck got with the Air Force satellite he'd appropriated as that they needed the intel to do their jobs and keep their people safe, and there appeared to be a lot more men in the bunker than they'd been expecting

* * *

Once everyone was briefed on what they needed for their jobs, they headed for Black Rock in the vans. They put their command vans out of sight at locations within range of the Remote Access Devices, and released swarms of drones. The computers in the command units handled their basic flight functions, so all the humans at the command consoles had to do was direct them when they saw something that required closer attention. Using the drones, they located and mapped out the coverage of all the cameras and security devices on the surface, and identified they best options for getting into the system without detection.

Chuck and Bai went in first again, but the camera where she needed to attach the remote access device was fifteen feet off the ground this time, so they added Sarah to their circus act. They slipped into position under the camera, being careful to avoid it or any of the other cameras capturing them. Chuck crouched down and Sarah stood on his shoulders before doing the same so that Bai could clamber up onto her shoulders. Bai carefully stood up first, then Sarah, and finally Chuck. Sarah marvelled at the way that he rose smoothly and surely as if he wasn't lifting the weight of two more people as well as his own, mentally shaking her head as her man yet again proved just how special he was.

As soon as Anna confirmed that she had control of the cameras, Bai edged back and hopped down like she had in the Fulcrum facility at Roark Instruments, though she was more careful here as she was twice as high off the ground. Sarah waited until she was clear and then did the same, giving her husband a hug before he hurried over to get the remote access device into the access and security systems. The others converged as he did this, so as soon as Anna took control of the system and opened the hatch under the bouncing pony in the play yard, they started sliding down the ladder into the bunker, using one hand and their feet to brake their descent while they held their weapons in the other hand.

Chuck had Mike and Rocky with him, as their team's primary target was Roark, and they'd be tranqing him and carrying him out. The only thing he let slow them down as they went through the facility was plugging remote access devices into the network and attaching them to the camera and security wiring as they went. Anna had located Roark using the security cameras and was directing Chuck to his location. As he went, Anna was whispering in his ear that Roark seemed to be a different kettle of fish here to the sleazebag that he played in public, as he was sleeping alone and his quarters were all business, with none of the flamboyant decadence he showed in public.

When they reached his quarters, Chuck slung the VAL and drew a pair of tranq pistols, he needed to put him under before he could raise an alarm so he wanted to put as many darts as he could into him as quickly as possible. As soon as the others signalled that they were ready, Chuck got Anna to release the door and Rocky to throw it open so that he came through the door fast, aiming at the bed. Roark woke instantly and reached for a gun on the bedside table, but Chuck put four darts into his neck in under a second, with at least two getting him in the carotid artery, so he slumped, unconscious, before he reached the side of the bed.

Chuck sent a message to Anna 'FATBOY captured, repeat, FATBOY captured' while the others came in and closed the door. They secured Roark hand and foot and taped his mouth, then they turned over his quarters looking for information. When they found the safe, Chuck got to work cracking it while Rocky ripped the drives out of Roark's computer, adding them to the files, phones, laptop and external storage that had already gone into the bags they brought. It didn't take him long to get into the safe, but when he did, he was surprised how big it was and how much was in it. As he was shovelling everything into a bag, he noticed that a lot of the paperwork and designs were in his father's handwriting, but he didn't have time to stop and look at anything.

When they were sure that they'd gotten everything (even going so far as to rip the mattress apart), Chuck and Zoe secured the bags with what they'd collected across their backs, Mike picked up Roark in a fireman's carry and they headed out once Chuck sent 'FATBOY enroute'. At the ladder, Chuck and Rocky went up first to hoist Roark up, with Mike following close behind to catch him if they slipped, and to get moving as quickly as possible when they got him to the surface. Zoe kept glancing up, and as soon as they'd pulled Roark through the hatch, she slung her VAL and scampered up the ladder like a monkey, coming through the hatch as Mike was settling Roark across his shoulders again and they took off.

While they were doing this, Mary and her team were collecting Stephen and any information worth getting in his lab, and Sarah and the other five teams were collecting any information and external storage that they could find, taking down and stashing the bodies of anyone they came across. They did find two other scientists there, Howard Busgang and Jonas Zarnow, so they tranqed and secured them and carried them out as well. The fact that Dr Busgang was also locked up seemed to indicate that he was there against his will, but the fact that Zarnow _wasn't_ made him questionable.

When Chuck got back to the command van, he called for the Shadows with the Bunker Busters, but told them to hold off until he authorised the drop as they still had people inside. He notified the support team leaders that the Shadows were on their way and to pull their men back as far as they could while keeping watch on the entrances.

Stephen tried to talk to Chuck when Mary brought him in, but Chuck's response was. "Shut up and get out of our way. If any of our people are hurt in this, I'll make you rue the day you were born!"

When Sarah turned up with her team and Dr Busgang, the relief on Chuck's face was palpable, and they threw decorum to the winds as they kissed. None of them were that surprised when John's team was the last to leave the bunker as they'd expected him to do one last sweep, and as soon as they shut the hatch, Chuck stuck his head into the van and asked Anna whether they had everything off the systems? Anna checked with Jeff, Pete and Skip and when they agreed that they thought that they had everything of use, Chuck said "Wipe everything!" and called for the bombing runs to begin, telling the platoon leaders to get their men further back.

* * *

Five of their guys were using laser designators to 'light up' their targets, but it was still damned impressive when the first bunker buster from one Shadow went straight up the narrow tunnel that the SUV had gone into, and then he dropped two more on one diagonal across the bunker while the other Shadow crossed his flight path, slightly higher up, as he dropped two more bunker busters on the other diagonal. They were only small bunker busters, but they were still bunker busters and the concussive force was phenomenal.

The bombs were timed to go up together, and when they did, it was quite impressive as the entire area of the bunker and tunnel rose into the air, then settled back down to form a depression. They were quiet for a moment, and then Chuck called Auntie Di and asked her to notify the commander of Fort Irwin to get a unit down here take over the site, and the Director of the FBI to get his team up there to take control. He notified her of the other two they extracted with their primary targets, and their probable status, then cut the call so that she could get things moving on her side.

As they had to wait there for the Army and FBI, Chuck called the tilt rotors in to load them up. Two thirds of the support teams were still out, watching for anyone who may have managed to get out and were trying to escape, but everyone else was loading the vans and equipment into Homer, Bart, Nelson and the Ospreys while they were waiting. Homer, Bart, Nelson and half the Ospreys took off as soon as they were loaded because there would have been too many questions if anyone else saw what they had. It was risky to keep Rocky, Ricky and Roxy there but they had them tucked behind the 'regular' Stealth Ospreys so that no-one would get a good look at them.

They'd administered the antidote to Roark, in case they needed him to answer any questions, and he was trying to put on his 'Ted' act again. The girls didn't appreciate the looks he was giving them, so Chuck took the easy way out to put a stop to that, he just took another length of duct tape and slapped it across his eyes.

Carina grinned at Chuck, saying "You know that he'll lose his eyebrows and lashes when that tape comes off?"

Chuck shrugged, "If he wants to complain, I'll show him what I was going to do originally, just wrap it around his head a few times. If I do that, he'll lose a lot more than his eyebrows and lashes when we rip it off."

She grinned and stretched up to kiss him on the cheek. "I like the way you think Chuckie!"

Fifteen minutes later, the trucks from the Fort Irwin arrived, but they were surprised to see the Commander of Fort Irwin had come along to see what the hell was going on down here, not someone they expected to see at 0350 at all. Chuck respectfully introduced himself as Commander Charles Carmichael, United States Navy, and John as Major John Casey, United States Marine Corps, but advised that they were not at liberty to discuss the operation.

He also explained that they were waiting on a team from the FBI, who would be taking control of the clean up operation. He stopped then, cocking his head and saying "Ah, that's them coming now", which worried the General, because it was five minutes before he could hear the helicopters.

The General looked at Chuck and asked. "How the hell did you hear that five minutes ago?"

Chuck just smiled. "We've been pinned down and desperately waiting to be pulled out of the shit enough times that we learned to pick up the first hint of the sound of a Black Hawk General." A very impressed General shook hands with both of them and went to oversee his people taking over from the support teams and Casey snorted as soon as he was out of earshot.

"You've never waited to be extracted in the time we've worked together, you had an ap on your phone alert you when the FBI's Black Hawk was approaching, didn't you?"

Chuck grinned at him. "Hey, it makes the regulars feel a bit of kinship with us if they think we do things the same way they do, and it was easier than having him standing here, asking us questions."

When the FBI's Black Hawk landed, Chuck officially handed over the site to them and they departed with their people. Half an hour later, they touched down on the roof of El Castillo.

* * *

In the Dungeon, they apologised to Dr Busgang, but told him he'd have to remain in custody until his story was confirmed. He was philosophical about it, as he was a lot more comfortable now and he wasn't afraid of these people, they weren't anything like the animals most of Roark's people were. Zarnow wasn't given the same treatment, he just had the bag pulled off his head and tape ripped off his mouth, taking a few chunks of skin with it, then he was thrown into a cell and locked in.

Roark didn't go to a cell, he went straight into an interrogation room. At first he was hopeful when his restraints were removed, but his arms and legs were immediately strapped to a chair and then he heard the ones who'd strapped him in leave. He heard lighter footsteps entering, but they stopped beside him for a while as though whoever it was was looking at him.

Suddenly the tape was ripped from his eyes, taking his eyebrows and lashes and fair bit of skin with it, as that woman had been saying. He was trying to tell the bastard what he thought of them, trying being the operative word as his mouth was still taped up, but he froze when his vision cleared enough to see who it was, because it was Mary Fucking Jaworski! That psychotic bitch had terrified him _before_ Graham had his fun telling him all the things she'd done as the CIA's infamous Agent Frost. The fact that she was wearing a plastic coverall and hair cap, with rubber gloves, safety glasses and a face mask hanging around her neck just made him more terrified, because that conjured up nasty images of what she was going to do to him (which, of course, was what she'd planned).

Mary gave him an evil smile. "Hello Ted"

She looked down to see what was dripping off the chair he was strapped to and laughed. "I that see you remember me then?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I guess it's hard for you to talk with this on."

With that, she ripped the tape off his mouth, tearing more skin away. "Now, we're going to have a little talk, and you're going to tell me everything I want to know, and I do mean _everything…_.. because if you don't, I'm likely to get angry Ted."

She leaned in a little and whispered conspiratorially. "Don't make me angry Ted, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

He just looked at her, horrified and she laughed again, shaking her head. "Oh come on Ted, don't tell me you didn't like The Hulk? Stefan used to make me and the kids watch re-runs of that show all the time, I thought all of you guys were into it?"

Roark stared at her, thinking. 'I'm going to die, this bitch is as psychotic as Volkoff!'

Mary questioned him for over an hour, and she didn't have to hurt him much to get him to start talking again the few times he tried to clam up, because he was terrified of what she'd do to him. When someone came into the room, Mary spun around to abuse whoever had interrupted her while she was working and Roark's terror grew, because she was furious as she started to turn, but his whimpering litany of "I'm going to die…. I'm going to die…. I'm going to die…." stopped when she registered who it was and her face softened.

His relief was short lived though, as he recognised him as the one who had been the commander of the operation at Black Rock…. and the guy who'd come running up to tell him that there was malware in the RIOS release, he now realised... and _his_ eyes had terrified him as well, just as his voice had when he was explaining to that woman what he'd do to him if he tried to complain about having his eyes taped over, and he was ordering the bombing run that wiped out everyone in Black Rock.

When she turned around and said. "You remember Charlie, my baby boy, don't you Ted? Well I suppose he looks different now that he's all grown up."

That made Roark's blood ran cold. 'Oh fuck! They're _both_ psychopaths! If she doesn't kill me, he will!'

The man, Charlie, whispered in her ear, and the smile on her face turned grim. She stretched up to kiss him on the cheek and then pushed him towards the door. "Go Sweetie, you don't want to see this!"

He bent down to kiss her on the cheek and whispered something else in her ear. She nodded and pushed him towards the door again before moving back to the chair that Roark was tied to.

He thought she was frightening enough when this just seemed to be some sort of crazy game to her, but he was now realising that he had been seeing her _nice_ side before. _N_ _ow_ he thought he understood that name she was given, because the look she fixed on him gave him the feeling that she was seeing him as a frozen corpse.

"Tell me about how you stole all of Stefan's designs and inventions after he disappeared and used them to make your fortune Ted."

An hour later, she had his full confession which, with the corroborating evidence that Chuck had taken from his safe in Black Rock, would be enough to have all the money he'd made from Stefan's inventions returned to Stephen. By the time she finished with Roark, he'd given up _everything_ he knew. He took whatever he wanted when he was the rich and powerful Ted Roark with a private army to ensure that no-one stood in his way, but here? Strapped to a chair alone in a room with a psychopathic bitch who's version of playing doctor was carving him to pieces? He would tell her whatever information she wanted to stop her doing that! He wasn't about to try and fool her either, because he believed her when when she said that if she found out that he'd told her anything but the whole truth, no matter where they put him, she'd get to him, and nothing would stop the retribution.

Casey took Roark off to get himself cleaned up and get some clean clothes (he would have been happy throwing him back in his cell the way he was, but Chuck had insisted on some basic humanity), so Zarnow was panicking when Roark hadn't returned before they came to drag him out of his cell. When they pushed him into an interrogation room which reeked of fresh bleach and he could see that the chair and floor around it had just been washed (to clean up the mess that Roark had made, pissing and shitting himself while he was strapped to the chair) and Mary Jaworski was covered up from head to toe to stop anything getting on her, he was convinced that she'd carved up Ted and they'd disposed of what was left of his body. As a result, Mary didn't need to touch him, he started telling her everything he knew before they'd even finished strapping him into the chair. When he was taken back to his cell and saw Roark asleep in his cell, he felt like a complete idiot.

* * *

Dr Busgang had fallen asleep soon after they put him in the holding cell, so as they were fairly certain that he was a victim here, they decided to let him sleep and talk to him in the morning. He was taken into a meeting room and they had a pleasant talk with him. Chuck was watching this via a video feed (as was Auntie Di), and between the Intersect and what he was checking on-line, he was comfortable that they had enough confirmation of everything Dr Busgang was telling them.

Auntie Di agreed that the best way to protect him would be to take him into protective custody and have him working on the Intersect Project, so she broke into the meeting. "I'm sorry Doctor Busgang, I am Major General Diane Beckman. I must confess that I've been listening in on the proceedings there, and I've been having my people confirm what you have been telling us. I'm sure that you understand how we need to be careful in view of those other creatures that we brought back from that site with you?"

He nodded. "Yes General, of course."

She smiled and nodded. "Good, now my people have told me that they have confirmed what you have told us, and it has been suggested to me that the best way to protect you would be to take you into protective custody and offer you a position working with us. That way you could continue working in your chosen field and be under the protection of our trusted security people. Now I'm not trying to pressure you into accepting this, but I feel compelled to inform you that your other options would be the Witness Protection Program, where you could never have anything to do with anything in your fields or contact anyone you knew for fear of leading people like Ted Roark to you, and they could find you anyway. Another option would be to relocate you into a secure facility, you could work there but you would be stuck in a bunker all the time and you could never contact anyone. A third option would be for you to continue as you were, but I'm afraid that you wouldn't be under any government protection and it would only be a matter of time before you were taken by people like Roark. In the interests of full disclosure, under the first option, your communications with anyone outside of the group would be controlled as well, but I'm sure that we could make arrangements for you to safely talk to people you wanted to. Of these options, which would be your choice Doctor Busgang?"

He looked nervous. "To be honest General, they all sound a little dangerous to me, but if I have to choose one of them, I'd choose option one."

She looked at him. "Is that your choice then Doctor Busgang?"

He looked a little more confident as he nodded and said. "Yes, General."

She smiled at him. "I think that you've made a good choice Doctor. You'll be brought back on the same plane as the prisoners, but I must ask you, for your own sake, don't talk to them. Actually, if you just sat there looking forlorn and not talking to anyone, we'll hopefully be able to convince them that you've gone to prison as well…. if the other side believes that you'll probably be safer as they'll be looking for you in the prisons."

He nodded again. "I'll try that General."

She nodded as well. "We may as well start this now then, so try and look upset and drag your feet when they take you back to your holding cell, and remember, don't talk to anyone."

Sarah smiled as she went to the door and called for Yuri.

When he came in, she said. "Doctor Busgang, this is Yuri."

Yuri shook his hand and said "Pleased to meet you Doctor" and the Doctor replied in kind.

Sarah went on then "Yuri, we're trying to convince those other two that Doctor Busgang has been arrested like them because he couldn't convince us that he wasn't part of what was going on there, so we're going have you drag him back to his cell, not too roughly mind you, but make it look good and scowl because you look really imposing when you do that."

Yuri grinned. "Mike's imposing, just ask him"

"Yes I know, but he can't help smiling if he sees Belle, or Sam or Gypsy for that matter, and that would ruin the effect."

Yuri concede her point at that. "So Doctor, are you ready to be dragged back to your cell?"

Dr Busgang shook his head with a laugh. "It's hard to believe that you are the same people who wiped out that place last night, okay…. wait, I have to make myself look scared again."

Yuri said "Would this help?" and suddenly leant forward with a fierce scowl on his face.

Busgang yelped and looked terrified and Sarah squeezed his hand with a reassuring smile. "That's perfect Doctor."

With that, Yuri kept that look on his face as he dragged the Doctor back to his cell, and all the Doctor had to do to keep in character was look at that expression.

* * *

Most of the team had managed to catch a nap before they had to take their charges to the plane. They were delivering four to the plane, Roark, Zarnow, Dr Busgang, and Stephen. Mary, Chuck and Ellie told Stephen that he was going back to work with Dr Dreyfus full time, and he wouldn't be leaving until he was cleared by Dr Dreyfus. Stephen tried to say that he was a grown man and he wasn't going to be told what to do, especially by his own children, and he really got to see Mowgli for the first time. He thought that what he'd seen of his son at Black Rock had been frightening, but as the focus of his rage now, he learned why so many were terrified of Mowgli.

"You will do _exactly_ what you are told, and you will not say another word! You put my wife, my family and my team at risk last night because of your stupidity and your selfish pride, _**twice**_ _ **!**_ First you ruined a _planned_ incursion by my team into the Fulcrum facility at Roark Industries by going in there ahead of us by yourself and getting yourself caught. That meant that we had to engage in a fire fight which put my people, _including_ my wife and brother and sister in law and other family members, at risk…. _two_ fire fights actually because we also came under fire when we were trying to recover you. _T_ _hen_ , I had to track you to Black Rock by misappropriating Air Force resources and bring in enough resources to take on a major base at short notice, as well as destroying the entire facility to make sure that nothing dangerous was left. Which leads us up to your worst transgression, to save _you_ , Mom, my wife and the rest of my family and team had to go into that place and risk being caught by vastly superior forces. If anything had happened to any of them, I would have killed you myself! For that matter, most of those hundreds of people in that facility wouldn't have had to die if we hadn't needed to go in there to get you out either, so all their deaths are on _you_. So, _D_ _ad_ , you _will_ go back to Doctor Dreyfus and you _will_ put your best effort into working with him until he clears you to come back to the real world! Otherwise, you'll be walking out that door and never speaking another word to any of us until the day you die!"

Stephen looked to Mary and Eleanora for support, but their faces told him that they were in complete agreement with Charles. He opened his mouth to say something else, but Chuck had had enough, so he just stuck a tranq dart in his neck and told those who would be dropping him and Dr Busgang off at Red Mountain as they were escorting Roark and Zarnow to DC to tranq him if he caused any trouble, along with Roark and Zarnow.

* * *

When they stopped in Red Mountain, Stephen was sent to Leo and Dr Busgang was sent off to recuperate before he started working, but Roark and Zarnow stayed on the plane as they were going to be dumped in the deepest, darkest CIA/NSA black site there was.

Getting the news less than a week later that both Roark and Zarnow had been killed in a prison brawl and were being cremated that day set off alarm bells (especially as they hadn't been informed by the prison that their prisoners had supposedly died, it was Chuck's monitoring for any mention of them that brought that to light), and they scrambled into action so that Di was at the prison inside two hours with the authority of the DNI, and an FBI SWAT team and a SEAL team from Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek to back them up. They stormed through the prison to the crematorium and stopped the ones who were trying to get the furnace hot enough to destroy the evidence before they could get there.

The bodies were nothing like Roark and Zarnow, but the men there were more afraid of the one who'd ordered them to get rid of the bodies than they were of Di, or at least they were until she sent the SWAT guys and SEALs from the room and ordered her personal security detail to strap them onto the trays and push them into the oven. They held out until they had been pushed in far enough for their hair to start burning, then they cracked.

They'd never know for sure whether the ones who had died trying to stop the FBI and SEALs arresting the most senior people in the prison were part of their organisation, or just fiercely loyal, but the fact that all the senior people running the prison were part of it made anyone close to them questionable. The ones in charge refused to say a word, but the risk of people like Roark and Zarnow being out there and working with the other side justified extreme measures, so they were dragged down to the crematorium and given the same treatment as the ones trying to get rid of the evidence had been.

They broke just like the others did, the fear of being burnt alive will do that to you. They didn't have a lot of information to give up, but what they did have was enough to be a worry, as Roark and Zarnow were on their way to Russia, to Volkoff Industries, oh shit!


	20. Roses and Rings

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be a few changes in the first hour or so as I tend to fix things that don't look quite right to me in the final form.**

The next couple of months were mostly spent mopping up the remnants of the Fulcrum cells, and trying to track down Roark and Zarnow. Unfortunately they did confirm that the pair had indeed run to Volkoff in Russia, which would make them, at the very least, difficult to get to. Even with the losses they'd inflicted on him, Alexei Volkoff had grown incredibly powerful in the past twenty years, so he had enough control over the Russian government to ensure that they protected him from any incursions. By extension, that also served to protect Roark and Zarnow from anyone going after them.

While they were successful in cleaning up the remnants of Fulcrum, they were extracting disturbing information from the ones they captured which indicated that Fulcrum had in fact been associated with another, bigger, organisation known as 'The Ring'. This 'Ring' was apparently based in Europe and the old Eastern Bloc countries, and indications were that it should be much more of a concern than Fulcrum had been. They also uncovered information that showed that Roark and Volkoff had been working together for quite a while, at least a decade but probably rather longer than that.

* * *

Di contacted them with an urgent mission in June, the team had been engaged by the CIA because they needed an assist with an on-going operation. When she and Jane Bentley came up on screen, they could see that the Director of the National Clandestine Service was pissed off, and she didn't waste time telling them why.

"The Acting DCIA has tasked me with engaging the Intersect team to salvage a deep cover operation that a senior officer of the CIA has been running without my knowledge. I just learned that one of our agents, Cameron Phillips, has been in deep cover as the live in girlfriend of an arms dealer, Karl Stromberg, for some time now, but something's come up that she and the CIA can't handle."

She looked at Sarah. "Agent Walker, you've worked with Agent Phillips in the past, haven't you?"

Sarah nodded "Yes Ma'am (they were careful to maintain detachment in case anyone else was monitoring the transmission), it's been a while but I remember her. How long has she been in deep cover?"

When Jane bit out "Nearly six months", the women around the table gasped. Carina had been on that type of mission for a month or two and she'd almost given up, she couldn't imagine doing it for six months, she would have killed herself long before that. She blurted out "We're getting her out of there, right?"

Jane nodded grimly. "That wasn't part of the brief I was given but we most definitely are! It's criminal to leave an agent in that type of environment for so long! This will mean that your mission scope will have to go beyond what I was told to bring you in for, but can you to help her wind up her original mission and get her out of there... please?"

Chuck just said "Most definitely Director!" grimly.

Jane nodded, her expression showing the gratitude that she couldn't express out loud, for fear of other ears. She passed on the information about what they were being officially engaged to do, and when and where they'd be meeting Cameron to get an invite to the party that was to be used to cover their entry into the mansion, and then signed off. They were all furious about what had been done to the woman, and they started putting together everything that they could find on Stromberg in the Intersect and on-line while Sarah and Chuck got ready to meet her at the club.

* * *

Sarah waited until the man with Cameron went to the bar and moved in. Cameron remembered her of course, as no-one forgot working with the legendary Ice Queen, especially when she'd been one of the two women who took over from her role as Director Graham's Enforcers, so she had no trouble playing along as Sarah came up to hug her and whisper in her ear. "I'm Sarah Posey, your best friend, and that's my new husband Charlie behind me. Don't worry Cam, we'll get you out of this, give me your phone."

She handed the phone off to Chuck and continued.

"Tell him that we haven't seen each other in ages because I was in Europe on our honeymoon and I couldn't call you when we got back because your number was in the phone I lost. I just saw you when I came to the club with Charlie and you're coming shopping with me tomorrow at some marvellous boutiques that I've found out about in Arcadia to catch up on the girl time we've missed."

Sarah felt a few taps on her arm and took the phone to pass it back to Cam with her added to the speed dials "I'm number seven in your speed dials now..."

She stepped back as she saw Stromberg turning to come back, switching to chattering away like a ditzy valley girl without missing a beat.

When Stromberg joined them, Cam introduced him to Sarah, her best friend who had dropped off the planet when she was on her honeymoon in Europe, and her new husband Charlie. After chattering for a while, Stromberg started to drag Cam away for a romantic dinner, but she stopped. "Wait, you'll be coming to our engagement party on Saturday, won't you?"

Sarah froze momentarily and then grinned. "Of course! We wouldn't miss it! We can talk about it tomorrow while we're out shopping."

They forced themselves to keep up the act for another half an hour before they left the club in case they were being watched, but as soon as they were in the car, Sarah pulled out her phone to call Jane's private number "Hi Aunt Jane, what were you told about this party on Saturday?"

She listened to the response and then said. "No, it's their fucking _engagement_ party!"

She had to listen to Jane ranting and swearing for the next five to ten minutes, but she was just as enraged as she was, and so was Chuck.

* * *

The next day, things went well, they actually maintained an upmarket boutique and coffee shop set up there that some of the Lost Children ran. The business did pretty well, but it had been set up so that you could go in the front and out the back without it looking too suspicious, because it fronted onto two streets. All they had to do was spend a little time looking through a couple of other boutiques and when they reached this one, they walked straight through and jumped into the minivan that was waiting to whisk them away while the men that Stromberg had following Cam were standing around out front, waiting.

They brought Cam into the Intersect base and got all the details out of her. None of them were too surprised to find that the engagement party was just one of many details that had been withheld from them. When Chuck looked up the specs on the vault that they needed to break into, he swore, because Stromberg had reason to be confident that his vault was impregnable, the security systems that he could have in there were daunting.

While he was doing this, Cam launched into telling them the details of what she'd picked up, and she'd done a good job. She had house plans, details of the security system, numbers, schedules and pictures of all the guards, just about everything they needed to get this operation set up. With the number of guards that Stromberg had there, they decided that they needed to have backup on-site, so they looked at the bio that had been set up for her and John became Cam's 'Uncle Alex', her only living relative.

The story was that Sarah had told her that her Uncle Alex was back from Europe because Vicky, his trophy wife, was a girlfriend of hers and she'd called her to have lunch yesterday, along with Jasmin and Patty, two other girlfriends of Cam's, so they'd all be coming to the engagement party.

They'd also have two vans outside with Anna, Jeff, Pete and Skip as the technical team, Ellie running the operation, and eight of the Cinders team in each ready to come in if they were needed.

When they were finished, Cam and Sarah went back to the shops and let Stromberg's men find them coming out of another boutique on a back street. Cam told Stromberg that night that her Uncle Alex and his wife and another girlfriend and her partner were also coming to the party now. Cam had also taken a number of the remote access devices to attach to the security systems and computer networks to allow the team to get in and take control of the systems. They planted one of the plain cars from the team's pool close enough to Stromberg's mansion to act as a relay between the Wi-Fi signal from the remote access devices and their systems back in El Castillo, or the control vans.

They got into the systems OK and were getting most of the information they needed out of them. They were also into the security systems and had enough control for Anna and the others to do their usual trick to make them invisible as far as the security monitors went on the mission. They did have one problem though, the vault was on a totally separate system and they couldn't find any way to get into it, so Chuck was going have to go in blind. He didn't like that, because it increased the likelihood of something going wrong, so he was compiling a list of what he'd need to take in with him.

Most of the list wasn't difficult to acquire, wide spectrum glasses that would let him see whatever lasers were in the vault were easy, as was a sensor for radiation and electrical energy and a sniffer to pick up explosives or biological elements, they had those. Cam had told them that she didn't think that it could be a suitcase nuke as it was only the side of a metal briefcase, but they needed to test for everything anyway. An ultra high sensitivity microphone to detect mechanical activity needed to be created, but he, Lou and Leslie could do that.

* * *

The biggest problem was how he was going to negotiate the lasers he expected to find inside the vault if he couldn't disable the system when he got there, but he thought that he had something that could help there, too. While they'd been chasing down the remnants of Fulcrum and handling their other duties, Chuck, Ellie and Leslie had finished the 'Cindersect' as Ellie and Anna called it. Anna and Jeff helped them with this, but Stephen hadn't been part of it since his meltdown over Roark.

Chuck was the guinea pig for the Cindersect, as he was the only one who had any history of being able to handle Intersect uploads without adverse effects. When they were all comfortable that they hadn't left anything dangerous in the code, Ellie wired him up so that they could monitor everything going on in his head while he uploaded the Cindersect.

From what she was seeing, Ellie thought that all they'd done was remove the Intersects in his head, because the activity and stress levels in his brain plummeted. Part of what they'd coded into the Cindersect upload process was designed to hunt out and erase prior Intersect code, to ensure that the Cindersect was the only Intersect operating in the brain, so she thought that there was a glitch in the installation code which meant that the previous versions were removed but the Cindersect hadn't been loaded.

Mind you, she didn't view that as being a bad thing at all, as seeing what the fucking Intersect had done to their father's brain, she'd be far happier if it was out of her little brother's head. Not that she had any misconceptions about the fact that if they couldn't get the Cindersect working, he'd just go and reload the CIA/NSA Intersect, as his damned sense of duty was so strong that he'd feel compelled to do so. If that meant that he only had one moderately 'safe' version of the Intersect in his head though, she'd still take that as a win. Whatever Chuck did though, she was excited about the possibility of getting the Intersect out of their father's head, as with it gone she was sure that he'd have a lot better chance of recovering properly.

She ran Chuck through all the usual tests to ensure that he was still the same brilliant and wonderful (or annoying, depending on the day) little brother he'd always been, but while he didn't question her hypothesis that the upload process had merely removed the previous versions, he suggested that they do the Intersect tests anyway.

Ellie was shocked to see that the Cindersect _was_ installed and working, far faster and better than any of the previous versions had in fact, but it was putting no more than a fraction of the load on his brain that the CIA/NSA or Fulcrum versions had, even when they induced massive flashes. She put him through a battery of tests while he was doing this and the strain on his brain was far less than any other time she'd done any testing on him, even before Bryce Fucking Larkin sent him the NSA/CIA Intersect and he'd stupidly loaded it into his head. They located Intersect prompts that would only apply to specific versions of the Intersect in his head, and these tests showed that he was accessing all the Intersect data in his head equally well.

With the traditional Intersect testing out of the way, they tried testing the Fulcrum innovation which added physical and other skill sets via the Intersect. Once again, the fact that all the interfaces had been moved from the conscious areas of the brain, down into the unconscious and native brain/body interface areas, meant that they performed far better with far less strain than before. He was quicker, faster, stronger, and he tired far less because the Intersect wasn't struggling with his body to perform the functions, so it was more natural and efficient.

The stored functions for the skill sets were rather limited in the Fulcrum Intersect, but part of what they'd gotten from Fulcrum's Meadow Branch and Roark Instruments facilities was the code for the systems that they used to code the skills routines into the Intersect database. It had been Leslie who had noted that the code to do this was compatible with the Intersect code, and commented about how cool it would be to do away with all those external systems they used, but Chuck had taken that idea and run with it.

A week later, Chuck had thrown together the basis of a module which plugged into the Cindersect code and should be able to be used to code the skill set routines directly into the Intersect database. They all worked on that for another few weeks, and they were confident that it was a functioning (and safe) component of the Cindersect now. What limited testing of the functionality that they'd had time for so far had worked fine, but now Chuck was going to be really testing its capabilities, because he was going to try and use that to add the skills he needed to manoeuvre around the lasers in the vault if he had to.

Between their meeting with Cam and Saturday, Chuck replayed everything in his memory and watched videos of men and women's gymnastics, acrobatics, martial arts, ballet, modern dance, break dancing, mime, anything that may include moves that would allow him to manoeuvre past the lasers in the vault, and practised the moves in the dojo (or their workroom when he didn't need the space of the dojo). Sarah was enjoying watching him doing this, because she couldn't believe how flexible he was, and she found the way he moved more than a little of a turn on.

* * *

They also dug Cameron Phillips' records out of the CIA's systems, because Sarah's memory of the mission she'd done with her didn't mesh with her being assigned to a honeypot mission like this. What they found fitted in with Sarah's memory of her, Cam and another agent, Casey Bracket, had been good enough to take over from Sarah as Graham's Enforcers after he lost Sarah to the Human Intersect Project, but they had been directly attached to Graham's office for years so Jane hadn't had any visibility of what they were doing. Those links to the DCIA's office had remained intact after Graham died, so Gordon had effectively 'inherited' them when he became the Acting DCIA, but a troglodyte like Gordon would never admit that women could be better agents than men, so when they told him in no uncertain terms that they were _not_ there to be his playthings, he started lending them to his 'associates' in the CIA (Graham's other cronies basically) to be used as honeypots in their off the books operations.

Cam and Casey didn't have any life outside the CIA because like Carina and most of Graham's other 'prodigies', he had snared them as abandoned teens from abusive backgrounds who'd started fighting back and trained them to be a killing machines (Graham knew from personal experience that as a general rule people who had been pushed far enough to fight back were more dangerous than others, and was a proponent of the catechism that the female of the species is deadlier than the male), so they didn't have anyone to turn to when this happened and had just accepted it as their lot in life.

They filled Jane in on the fact that Casey was in much the same situation as Cam, so she started taking steps to get them both under her direct control.

* * *

On Saturday night, the teams were on site in the vans when they started to turn up for the party, Chuck and Sarah were in the SL 65 AMG again, Robin and Michael were in the Aston Martin, Zondra and Javier were in Carina's Lamborghini and John and Carina were in the stretch Town Car. Cam went to town on 'Uncle Alex', irate that she'd had to find out that the only family she had was back in the country from someone else.

John played along. "Hey, don't blame me, Victoria suddenly decided that she was tired of the fashion shows and wanted to come home _now_. I've been on the phone ever since I got back, trying to shore up my business relations with the people over there that I was supposed to be meeting with this week!"

"So you called your business partners, and Vicky called Sarah, Jasmine and Patty, but neither of you thought to call me? We're the only family each other have Uncle Alex! Doesn't that count for _anything_? I thought that I wasn't going to have anyone from my side at my engagement party until I saw Sarah in that club!" She turned on the tears then and John went to hug her, taking her off to talk. The talk was actually about the details of the plan for her to leave with them, but she did a great job of selling it as a teary heart to heart, she really was a good agent.

When they arrived, Chuck and Sarah were trying to keep a low profile, because even though they'd altered their appearances, there was always a possibility that someone might connect them to the Carmichaels. At least they could spend their time with the others as they were just there as Cam's friends and family, so they didn't have to go through the motions of circulating.

A bit before the speeches were supposed to start, Cam slipped Sarah the keycards they needed to get to the vault, and when everyone else was being herded into the foyer for the speeches, Chuck and Sarah slipped away in the other direction.

Anna and the others were ready, and they started cycling video to hide them from the security monitors, they also kept an eye out to warn them about the guards, but they were all downstairs at the moment.

When they got to the vault, Chuck had no trouble opening it, but there was nothing that he could get to to disable the security system. When he put the glasses on and activated them though, he swore, so Sarah grabbed her's to see what the problem was. "Fuck! Multiple _roving_ lasers? Fixed ones aren't hard enough?"

She asked "Can you do it Honey?" but she wasn't too happy with his answer of "I hope so!"

He looked at her and caught her expression. "No, I can, don't worry Sweetie!"

He transferred the sensors he needed to his pants pockets and zipped them shut, taking off his suit jacket and handing it to her as he memorised the lasers' movement patterns. When he had them, he gave her a kiss for luck and started.

She couldn't take her eyes off him as he moved through the lasers, leaping, twisting, spinning, even dropping to the floor and sliding under the beam, she'd never seen anyone move like that, not even when he was practising. When he managed to get through all the beams without triggering anything, he grinned at her as they shared a sigh of relief.

Chuck tested the case for radiation, but it looked like Cam had been right, it didn't appear to be nuclear. The next tests he ran were for any live circuits, explosives, biological agents or signs that might indicate alarms, or a bomb trigger or mechanism, and when they came up clear too he pulled out his lock picks and got to work on the case's locks. When he got it open, the device inside didn't look like a weapon, it was just a flat ovoid, but he ran all the scans over it again, and it came up clean too.

Once he was convinced that the device wasn't dangerous, he removed it from the case and went through the rest of the case with a fine toothed comb to ensure that absolutely nothing else was in there, before relocking the case and leaving it in exactly as he'd found it once he was confident that he had everything he'd come for. He knelt down, and when all the beams were clear of the floor, slid the device across to the vault's doorway where Sarah was waiting to collect it, and she picked it up to get it out of the way.

As the patterns were different from the other side, he took another couple of minutes to get the movement patterns of the beams again before he worked his way back out to the door. He took off his shirt so that Sarah could tape the device to his stomach before he put his shirt and jacket back on.

Sarah had been checking with Zondra, and she told them they had at least five to ten minutes yet when Chuck was getting dressed again (because John had taken over giving the speech when Stromberg's turned out to be no more than a couple of lines). With that they headed for Stromberg's office to search for any other papers that may have relevant information for Cam's mission, as well as any external drives or computers that weren't on the network. They snapped pictures of a few documents and copied the thumb drives they found in the safe and the drawers, putting everything back the way it was and getting back to the party before John's speech had finished.

When the speeches finished Sarah slipped the key cards back to Cam as she told her that Charlie had been called into work urgently because some critical systems his department was responsible for had apparently crashed. Then, with a kiss and one last "congratulations", she ran back to Chuck and they took off, though they only went as far as the control van.

As they listened over the mics, Cam put on a great performance as she played Stromberg, recounting the story that John had briefed her on earlier. She whined about how her uncle had just told her that his wife was demanding that they head back to Europe again tomorrow, because one of her girlfriends who was still over there had called her to tell her about an exclusive show she'd heard about that was being put on in Milan in a couple of days, so she wouldn't have a chance to catch up with him before he left.

They heard Carina snort as she listened to Cam going on about it. "That bitch, she always has to have everything her way, she would never have met him if I hadn't introduced them, but now she's dragging him back to Europe and god knows when I'll see him again, I don't even know whether he'll be here for our wedding."

Stromberg told her that she should go and catch up with her uncle tonight then, and he'd see her in the morning (he actually sounded as though he cared), so she'd kissed him (slipping the key cards back into his pocket while he was distracted) and thanked him profusely before she told John to wait while she ran upstairs to grab her overnight bag (along with everything of her's she wanted and the evidence she'd already collected). She kissed Stromberg again and told him she'd see him in the morning before she left with John and Carina in the Towncar, with Robin and Michael and Zondra and Javier leaving at the same time as they didn't know anyone else there.

As soon as the Town Car, Aston Martin and Lambo passed the van, the van took off after them, with Sarah and Chuck following in the SL 65. Stromberg shouldn't realise that anything was wrong for ages, but they didn't want to be around, just in case.

Back at the Castle House, they locked the "weapon" away in a safe in the Dungeon, because Jane told them that it related to another case that they were being brought into in the near future. After they'd given the mission report to Di and Jane, Ellie gave Cam a sedative and they settled her into one of the Dungeon Apartments, because they were flying her back to DC in one of the J50s the following morning.

Jane had told Cam that she was to report to her and no-one else when she arrived at Langley. She would handle her debriefing and then she would be attached to her office with Casey Bracket for the foreseeable future, at least until she was finished with the counselling sessions that she was booked in for. What Jane didn't tell Cam yet was that she would be attached to her office until the paperwork to transfer her and Casey to the Intersect Project was processed, because it had been agreed after they went over the job description of the Director of the National Clandestine Service that as all CIA field agents officially reported through that position and there wasn't a properly authorised Director of the CIA at that point, the DNCS was deemed to have the authority to sign the paperwork to transfer CIA agents to another body.

She was _also_ deemed to have the authority to sign off on the penalties for Intersect team members being put at risk because Cam's handler deliberately withheld critical information that the team needed for the operation they conducted on behalf of the CIA, so that was another Seven Hundred Thousand that the CIA lost.

* * *

After they got Cam settled down in the Apartment, the team went back to the conference room and initiated another link with Auntie Di to find out what the hell this other case was. As usual, the information that Jane had been given to pass on was only a small part of what was relevant, and this time it was even worse, because the some government oversight committee had gone over the DNI's head and to avoid being ousted by his own party, Jack had had to capitulate and order the DNI to have them work with the CIA's 'Ring Expert' to pursue it. There was also a question about why the CIA's expert on the Ring would be in the United States, given what they'd found out about them primarily being based in Europe.

Chuck and the rest of the tech team combed all the Agency records for this 'Special Agent Daniel Shaw', and there were suspicious holes all through his records, in fact they read much like Bryce Larkin's had, which didn't inspire any confidence at all. There wasn't much in the Intersect about Shaw either, he'd just pretty much appeared out of nowhere with no real service history behind him, and that made them all wonder.

They didn't like the way this thing with this CIA 'Special Agent' being forced on them smelt, so it was agreed that they would all use their real ranks when he came in, rather than their pre-Intersect team ranks as they normally did. John, Sarah, Robin, Carina and Zondra were all the equivalent of Senior Special Agents in their respective agencies now, but Chuck was formally recognised as the Special Agent in Charge for the Intersect team and the Station Chief of the East LA Station (which was actually the Dungeon, but Shaw didn't know that) by the DIA, DCS, NSA and FBI.

No-one expected this 'Special Agent' to accept their ranks, but Jane had seen the evidence of this and that it was all officially approved. She'd also seen Langston Graham and the DNI's signatures on the document that said that Sarah was being transferred into the Intersect team at that rank, so when this Shaw arced up (there was no 'if' about it), they'd bring her in to shut him down.

* * *

As they'd predicted, when John escorted Shaw into the Intersect base, he strutted in as if he owned the place. He had obviously decided that he was in charge because he was a _CIA Special Agent_ so everyone would have to defer to him. They just looked at each other, this was going to be interesting.

After checking out Carina, Robin and Zondra as if they were pieces of meat, Shaw ignored everyone else and zeroed in on Sarah. He'd decided that he was going to put the rest of these losers in their place straight away to make sure that they knew who was in charge, but Walker was something he'd dreamed about for a long time. Casey was a burn out, just marking time to his retirement. Miller was commonly known to be nothing more than a demon in bed, but he didn't know anything about the other women, he'd take them both for a test spin though when he had the time. Bartowski was just some sort of tech support geek who they'd called an analyst to add him to the team, but Walker was stunning, and he'd heard enough stories about what she'd do with the proper motivation to be dying to experience it for himself, so he'd play nice with her, until he got what he wanted from her anyway. "Hello Sarah, I've heard so many good things about you, it's going to be a pleasure working with you."

She looked at him as if he was something she'd stepped in. "The pleasure's all your's Shaw."

That was enough to set him off, because he wouldn't accept being treated with anything less than but the respect that in his mind he was due, so he drew himself up to his full height and puffed out his chest.

"That's _Special Agent Shaw_ to you _Agent_ Walker! You need to learn how to show proper respect to your superiors!"

Sarah's expression didn't change as she responded. "No Shaw, that's obviously obviously _your_ problem... Have the CIA forgotten about the required protocols in regard to reporting to the Special Agent in Charge when you enter a Station since I left?"

Shaw frowned at her and asked mockingly. "What _Station_?"

Trying to get this arsehole away from Sarah, John responded from behind him, trying and make him turn around and look at him.

" _This_ Station Shaw! The East LA Station as it is formally designated by the DIA, DCS, NSA and FBI."

At that Shaw decided to start by putting Casey in his place, so he looked around and snorted in contempt, saying. " _This_ is supposed to be a station? Well I guess that means that you've gotten yourself a promotion at last then Casey."

John's expression matched Sarah's. "Yes I did Shaw, but I'm not the SAC... it appears that _Senior_ _Special Agent_ Walker was correct about the CIA's forgetting about the required protocols, if they ever knew them."

Shaw tried to stand up to him. "Look! I'm not going to play who's who with you people. The only important thing here is that you've been assigned to assist me on _my_ operation, which means that _I'm_ in charge and you'll all do what I tell you to do, or _else!_ "

At that point Chuck burst out laughing. "Shit Sarah, are _all_ CIA Agents like this? I thought that Larkin and Sullivan were just arseholes because that was their nature."

Sarah smiled at him. "No Chuck, that's pretty much the way they all are, the males at least."

Shaw rounded on him. "And I won't take any disrespect from geeks who don't rate being called analysts Bartowski, one more word out of you and I'll have you fired!"

Chuck had been on edge from the moment Shaw went after Sarah, so that was his cue to assert his authority. He stood up and moved towards Shaw with grim expression which made Shaw back up as he got closer. Chuck stayed right in his face as he spoke to him. "That's _Special Agent in Charge Carmichael_ to you Shaw! This is _my_ station, _my_ team, and _my_ operation, because anything that is run out this station or with my team is run by _me!_ Do. You. Understand?"

Shaw started stammering that this was a CIA operation and he'd be running it, and Chuck looked at Robin.

In less than twenty seconds the big screen lit up, filled with the image of Lieutenant General Diane Beckman in full uniform (she'd gotten all dressed up for this so she was going to have her fun).

The flash of amusement that crossed over her face when she took in the tableau on screen would have been missed by anyone who didn't know her, and she'd schooled her expression before she spoke. "Is there a problem there Special Agent in Charge Carmichael?"

Chuck turned to the screen. "General, wasn't the oversight committee who requested the Intersect team's assistance in this operation informed of the conditions that apply when our team is engaged? Also, are CIA personnel required to comply with the same protocols as the rest of the intelligence community in regard to reporting to the Special Agent in Charge when they enter another agency's station?"

"Yes, Agent Carmichael, the DNI assured me that he'd informed the oversight committee of the requirements for any operations with your team, but my understanding is that this engagement is actually being be run by Director Bentley of the National Clandestine Service, and we've never had any trouble with Director Bentley in the past. And in my experience, the CIA has complied with the required protocols when reporting into NSA stations at least... Why are you asking these questions Agent Carmichael... and what has happened there? The situation there appears a little tense?"

"Agent Shaw here has disrespected every member of my team since he arrived General. Upon entering our station he ogled our female agents as if they were pieces of meat and then ignored everyone else as he tried to make advances to Senior Special Agent Walker. When she rebuffed his advances he tried to intimidate her into submitting to his authority as her _superior_ , so she reminded him of the protocols that required that he report to the Special Agent in Charge of the Station upon arrival."

"When Major Casey informed him of what station he was in, because he apparently had no idea of where he was, he disrespected him, even though he obviously believed that Major Casey was the Special Agent in Charge, and then went on to inform him that as we had been assigned to assist him in _his_ operation, we all worked for him and we'd do whatever he told us to _or else_. I must admit that at that point I laughed at him because I couldn't believe the way he was behaving, and he informed me, what was it? Oh yes, that he wouldn't take any disrespect from geeks who don't rate being called analysts and if I said one more word he'd have me fired... And on top of that, he _also_ openly identified himself as _Special Agent Shaw_ to a civilian employee of our cover business when he first arrived."

"If this is an indication of what we can expect in shared operations with the CIA General, I will not allow any further CIA involvement in _any_ of my team's operations. It's too disruptive for my team and we have far too many important projects on our books to waste time dealing with nonsense like this. At this rate we'll also need to move our base, possibly to another city, because every CIA agent who's come here so far has wilfully risked exposing our operation, the CIA doesn't seem to understand the meaning of _covert_ any more... if they ever did."

Shaw only managed to get out "Who do.." before the General angrily cut him off. "Shaw, shut your mouth before I decide to give my Agents there leave to do what they so obviously want to do!" That made Shaw look around to see that the others all had pistols in their hands, and murder in their eyes, when he saw that he flinched and stepped back.

The General went on. "Agent Carmichael, while I can see that this... _person_... had caused considerable disruption to your team, can we get Director Bentley on the line and try to see whether we can manage to sort this out _without_ bloodshed?"

Chuck reluctantly agreed, but stressed that what had happened here would _not_ be allowed to continue. The General nodded and brought Jane Bentley on-line.

As soon as she came on line, Di jumped in. "Director Bentley, what instructions were given to Agent Shaw about the operation he was assigned to participate with the Intersect team on?" Jane looked from her image, to the image from the bunker.

"As per your brief General, I informed Agent Shaw that his initial contact for this operation would have to be made very discretely with John Casey in your team's cover business, because their cover business was mostly made up of civilians, and when Major Casey escorted him into the team's base he was to report to the Special Agent in Change of the East LA Station, and that the special Agent in Charge of the East LA Station would have _full_ control of the operation."

"Are you aware of any medical, mental health or illicit drug related issues with this agent Director?"

"No I am not, why would you ask that General?"

"Because upon arrival, your Agent Shaw apparently openly identified himself as _Special Agent Shaw_ to a _civilian_ employee of my team's cover business. Then when he entered our station, instead of reporting to the SAC as required, he reportedly leered at all our female agents before ignoring everyone else as he tried to make advances to Agent Walker. When Agent Walker rejected his advances and reminded him of the protocols requiring him to officially report to the SAC upon entering a station, he tried to intimidate her into submitting to his authority, disrespected her and the rest of the team, informed them that they all worked for him because it was _his_ operation, and finally told the _SAC_ that he'd have him fired if he spoke back to him."

Jane froze at that, as anyone going after Sarah was a hot button for her. "Is this true Shaw?"

Shaw only got out "No Ma'am..." before Chuck said, "Let's play the recording, shall we?", which made him backtrack "Well, some parts _may_ have been taken that way, perhaps, but her interpretation was out of context".

Chuck swore under his breath and said "Director, if I may?" and nodded to Robin who'd queued it up.

At the end of the recording the Jane looked furious, because Shaw had not only been a total sleaze to Sarah and the other women and disrespected everyone there, he'd also managed to make the rest of the CIA look like idiots by association.

"What part of what _General_ Beckman said did you think was out of context Shaw? Because from what I just saw and heard, she went easy on you." This time Shaw remained silent.

Di took up the discussion again. "Director, it would obviously be exceedingly difficult for my team to be able to work with Agent Shaw after his behaviour there, does the CIA have anyone else that they can assign to this operation?"

"I'm afraid not General, I have been informed that Shaw is the only Ring expert that the CIA has, he was reporting to DCIA Graham before he died, but the Acting DCIA assigned him to me, as the Director of the National Clandestine Service. After what I just saw, I'm beginning to understand why."

Then she turned to address Shaw. "Shaw, are you capable of behaving like a professional, giving Special Agent In Charge Carmichael and rest of his team proper respect and providing the team you've been assigned to work with the information on the Ring that they need to complete this operation, _without_ doing anything else stupid?"

Shaw gritted his teeth. "Yes Ma'am."

The Director turned his attention back to the others. "General, Special Agent in Charge Carmichael, are you prepared to proceed on this basis, or do we need to cancel this operation here and now?" Chuck looked at the others, and when they reluctantly nodded, he agreed to see whether it could be workable, but stipulated that Shaw would have to work out of the CIA's local point of presence except when he was needed for something specific as he wasn't prepared to subject his team to Shaw's presence any more than was absolutely necessary.

Chuck was pissed off with this tool, so when Jane tried to say that the CIA didn't have stations within the United States, he snapped back at her. "I am well aware that the CIA doesn't have many _official_ stations in the United States Director Bentley, but I'm _also_ aware that you _do_ have plenty of _unofficial_ stations, like the one on Lowry Road in Los Feliz, so Agent Shaw will be working out of your Los Feliz Station unless there is a specific need for him to work directly with my team for a given activity! Have I made myself sufficiently clear on this point Director, or do I need to elaborate?"

Jane had to hide her smile at that, as Sarah's husband obviously knew far more about the CIA's operations than he was supposed to, and what's more he was damned impressive when he was riled up enough to assert his authority, she'd never seen him do that before. She made a show of testily telling him that he'd made himself quite clear and agreed to his requirements, and with that they cancelled the link.

* * *

They headed into the conference room to get the information together to get a start on the operation after that, but as Chuck entered the room, he saw Shaw making a beeline for the chair next to Sarah. " _S_ _haw_ _!_ What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Shaw was still delusional enough to believe that he could swing this his way and he casually waved to the seat he was heading for, saying. "I don't know what you mean Agent Carmichael, I was just going to sit down so we can get started with the briefing."

Chuck only just managed to keep a civil tone as he said. "Senior Special Agent Walker has made it quite clear that she does not wish to be anywhere near you, so you _will_ respect her wishes and stay the hell away from her, do you understand?"

Shaw bristled and started to respond, but Chuck pointed to the far end of the table and barked. "Sit down there!"

When Shaw tried to stand his ground the tone of Chuck's voice changed as he barked "Now!" and he scampered to the end of the table.

When Shaw had seated himself where he was told and Chuck sat down between him and Sarah (in the very seat Shaw had been heading for) and told him to tell them what he knew about the Ring. Shaw's response was that the background information wasn't relevant, they just needed to concentrate on getting him what he needed to proceed with his operation, and that didn't go down at all well with Chuck.

He grabbed the keyboard on the table and about twenty seconds later the screen lit up with the image of Jane Bentley. When she saw who was on screen, she wasn't happy, as it meant that that idiot had obviously done something else stupid. "Is there a problem Special Agent in Charge Carmichael?"

"Yes Director, I'm afraid that this operation will have to be cancelled after all as Agent Shaw is refusing to provide us with the information about the Ring that we'll need to conduct this operation."

The Director glared at Shaw. "Is this true Shaw?"

Shaw only got out "No Ma'am…." before Chuck started the replay of what happened in the room, including him making another try at Sarah.

When it was finished playing, Jane looked at Shaw and asked. "What did I tell you about _not_ doing anything else stupid Shaw? Quite aside from that, just in the last ten minutes, you've lied to me _twice_ about what you've said and done when anyone up to even the level of a village idiot would have to know that the proof that you're lying would be waiting, ready to be played."

"Special Agent Carmichael, if you will give me ten minutes to clear my schedule, it appears that I will have to sit in on this to try and make the Village Idiot deliver what's required."

Chuck got as far as "I'm sorry about this Director" when Jane cut him off "No Agent Carmichael, it's the CIA that needs to apologise to you, all of you, for forcing _this_ on you, and I can assure you that that apology will be coming your way but unfortunately we're seeing enough intel to be certain that this Ring _is_ something to be worried about, and this idiot is supposedly the one who knows the most about it, so if you'll just give me ten minutes, I'll clear my schedule so I can try to help get what you need. Shaw, get your facts in order!"

True to her word, it only took her ten minutes to line up people to cover things for her because she had to assist with clearing up an inter agency issue that one of their stupid agents had created. She left the link open, so they heard what she was saying to the people she called. When she came back to them she said "So Shaw, Special Agent Carmichael has asked you to fill the team in on everything you know about the Ring. Well, we're listening! _S_ _haw_ _!_ "

Shaw was interested in nothing but his own standing, so he'd spent the entire time stewing over the way she'd been openly treating him like an idiot and siding with these people. He used to report to the fucking DCIA, but now he'd been relegated to the Director of the NCS, and the bitch wasn't giving him any of the respect he deserved! He assured himself that he'd get this back on track and put all of them in their place, and when this was done, Walker was going to be on her knees doing everything he wanted to atone for the disrespect she'd shown him. Bartowski was a problem, as they appeared to be involved in some way though, so he'd need to get him out of the way to get a clear shot at her.

He was so tied up making his schemes that he didn't hear when Jane came back and spoke to him, so she had to shout his name a second time to get his attention. He muttered something about "Sorry Ma'am, just putting the information together" and then started talking about the Ring. He was still thinking about his schemes, so they had to keep interrupting him to tell him to explain what the hell he was mumbling about.

An hour or so later, they had everything Shaw knew about the Ring, and that was rather unimpressive. He had supposedly managed to insert an agent into the Ring in Paris in 2003, but they'd been killed in 2005, and in the four years since then, he hadn't brought in anything of any real value, because he'd just been chasing his tail (or chasing tail, more to the point) around Europe and recording any mention of the Ring he heard.

Recently, he'd heard on the grapevine that his agent's lock box with all the intel that they'd accumulated on the Ring was being sold at auction, and that the ones selling it had paid an arms dealer, Karl Stromberg, Ten Million to get it to the United States for the auction. He'd come back to the States to get an operation mounted to get the lock box off Stromberg, but apparently some NSA team had already managed to recover it, so they'd have to get it from the NSA.

Chuck glanced at the screen at that point and Jane shared a quick smile with him. Shaw had no idea that these people were the ones who had recovered the lock box, and she was happy for him to remain ignorant of that fact.

Of course Shaw missed that exchange as he'd just been side tracked by a notion that could be the answer to his problems. Bartowski was no match for Panzer, hell, he didn't know anyone who was, which was why he was still trying to find a way to get that key off him, so this was perfect! If Panzer killed Bartowski, he'd be out of the way, but if by some chance Bartowski managed to succeed, he'd have the key, and Bartowski would be almost certainly be out of action for a while after going up against Panzer, so it was a win/win in his book!

With that, Shaw went on to say that the digital key that was needed to open the lock box was in Paris, so someone from the team needed to go there and retrieve it. At that he looked at Chuck and said. "I've heard that you'd love to see Paris, Chuck, this would be an easy trip for you, just duck over to Paris on the Red Eye tonight, see the sights, pick up the key and come back."

Really? He was so stupid that he thought that anyone would fall for him suddenly buddying up to them? Or that they'd believe that he'd talked to anyone who'd been around Chuck enough for him to be sharing his likes and dislikes with them? Chuck wasn't in the mood to play games with this idiot, so he just said. "I don't know who you heard that from Shaw, but for your information I've already seen Paris, in fact that picture..." Waving at the picture of the Eiffel Tower on the wall that had started Shaw down this train of thought. "Was taken from one of the apartments we maintain there for operations, and I don't have any time to go to France or anywhere else on a sightseeing trip, I can't spare anyone on my team for that either, you'll have to go himself!"

Shaw was smug as he came back with. "Oh, I'm afraid I'm too well known in Paris for that, I'd be made as soon as I landed."

Chuck had had it. "Oh for fuck's sake! Director Bentley, does the CIA have any agents in Paris at the moment? If not I can request assistance from our friends at the DGSE."

"Indeed we do Agent Carmichael! What's the location of this key Shaw? I'll have someone pick it up straight away."

Shaw was trapped now, and it showed. "Well, the key may not actually be in Paris yet Ma'am, the latest word was that the Ring was in the process of transporting it to Paris."

They all just looked at him and Jane asked suspiciously. "When, _exactly_ , was this key supposed to be transported to Paris Shaw?"

He tried to think of a way to get out of this, but couldn't. "A First Class passenger on the Red Eye flight tonight supposedly has it."

"Explain yourself Shaw! What were you doing, proposing that Special Agent in Charge Carmichael get on that plane without giving him such critical intel? Were you trying to set Agent Carmichael up to have to engage an enemy agent on the plane with no forewarning or preparation? Because that is what it looks like to me!"

"I... I thought it would be better to avoid making him nervous by telling him ahead of time, as my understanding is that he doesn't have any real field experience. It should be a simple job, just knock out the courier and take the key."

"You appear to have obtained all your information about Agent Carmichael from a men's locker room wall Shaw as it's completely wrong….. But if the job is _that_ simple you can do it yourself, the E-tickets will be waiting for you at the airport!"

"That wouldn't be a good idea Ma'am, the Ring agent may recognise me."

"Very well Shaw, if you're incapable of doing this ' _simple job_ ' yourself, pack up and return to Washington tonight... You will to report to me in Langley first thing in the morning as this operation is hereby cancelled. I will be giving Director Gordon a full report of why this was necessary."

"No, wait Ma'am! I believe that I can do it, but I should have support along in case I'm made or the Ring has more than one person on the plane. The best solution would be for Agent Walker and I to travel as a couple, that way we won't attract too much attention and I'm sure that we'd be able to handle anything that comes up between us."

Chuck restrained Sarah before she could launch herself out of her seat to attack the tool. As he was preventing her from damaging the idiot Sarah addressed Jane. "As Special Agent in Charge Carmichael and I have _both_ informed Mister Shaw more than once Director Bentley, I am not prepared to work directly with him in _any_ capacity, and I do not believe that our other agents are, either!"

Carina cut in at that point. "Agent Walker is correct on that Ma'am, for me at least, but I _am_ prepared to go along as backup for this mission. I will have no connection to Shaw's operation however…. He is to have absolutely _no_ contact with me in any way, shape or form at either LAX or Orly airports or on the plane. I will observe his mission anonymously so that _if_ he manages to succeed I'll just be along for the ride, but if he fails…. as I expect he will…. _I_ will take over the mission and retrieve this key for you."

The Director looked at her. "Are you sure about this Agent, sorry, Senior Special Agent Miller? You won't have any support up there, so the risk factor will be high."

Carina nodded. "Yes Ma'am, if this intel is as important as Shaw claims I'll make sure we get that key... but I won't promise not to shoot him if it doesn't live up to his claims."

Jane smiled grimly as she nodded at that. "I may well help you if that's the case Agent Miller!"

She looked at the others. "If that's all... _Shaw_ , you are to stay well away from Agent Miller and do nothing to jeopardise her cover! Now get moving, your ticket will be waiting at the LAX."

Looking back at Carina she added. "Senior Special Agent Miller, good luck, and thank you."

John frog marched Shaw out of the building and then they went into the Dungeon. Mei's first words when they walked in were "You're not going into a situation like that by yourself, I'm coming with you!" and Vinnie added "And so am I!" (He and Mei had become a couple a few months after the wedding, so there was no way he was letting her go into a dangerous situation without him, but he was thinking of Carina too.)

As it made sense to have covert backups that no-one knew about and there was little time to get ready for an international flight, no-one wasted any time arguing, they just booked three separate tickets for them on the flight while they packed their bags.

 **A/N: Cameron Phillips is Greta #4, the one who wanted to kill Jeffster because they were always perving on her, Summer Glau. The other Enforcer she referred to, Casey Bracket, was Greta #1, Olivia Munn, and Rick and Vick were of course Gretas #2 & 3.  
**


	21. Shaw Thing

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be a few changes in the first hour or so as I tend to fix things that don't look quite right to me in the final form.**

No-one was at all surprised when Shaw ignored his orders and went straight up to Carina in the Airport's departure lounge, but when he grabbed her arm roughly and tried to force her to do what he told her on the plane (seduce the target to get his luggage tag so they could get the bag and therefore the key), she almost broke his wrist as she twisted free of his grip, and then kneed him in the family jewels hard enough to leave him rolling around on the floor in agony. She got a round of applause from men and women alike as she stalked off, muttering angrily about how women should be protected from being attacked by perverts like that. Airport security grabbed Shaw and dragged him away, so Carina became the primary for this mission.

Chuck got into the system and added records to put Shaw on the terrorist watch lists under another name, to ensure that he would be held there until after their plane took off once they started checking into him. He sent a private message to Jane to ask her hold off bailing Shaw out until their agent had taken off, and just got a winky face response. He monitored the systems and smiled as he showed Sarah that she'd dodged the calls from Homeland Security, so Shaw stayed in detention until he managed to contact his sponsors in the CIA via the dodgy 'lawyer' that he called to represent him. As well as keeping Shaw out of the way long enough to stop him screwing everything up, that gave them a few more names to look into.

Sitting in First Class on the plane, Carina, Mei and Vinnie were wearing Augmented Reality glasses with cameras, and they were all scanning the passengers and cabin staff. Their feeds were being fed back to the Dungeon, where they were running everyone through facial recognition systems and Chuck was checking the Intersect databases for a match.

They didn't get any hits on the big guy, Panzer, who was in the seat that was supposed to be the Ring courier's, but there was no question that he was in the business, because the man was obviously trained muscle. Built like Mike but a few inches shorter, the way he moved said that he knew how to handle himself, so the fact that Shaw had tried to set Chuck up to go after him without any idea of what he was up against made most of them want to hurt the tool, bad. The others accepted that they'd have to stand in line behind Sarah for that privilege.

While they didn't get any hits on the courier though, they did get a hit on one of the flight attendants, as she was a freelance assassin, Serena Horton. So unless she was there to kill one of the First Class passengers during the flight (which a professional wouldn't risk because she'd be trapped on the plane with no escape route and as a flight attendant she was more noticeable than a passenger), she was probably there as backup for the courier.

When they didn't find anything about anyone else in First Class, Carina decided that she'd have to work Panzer to get the key, it was the only option that was viable in the environment they had on the plane. They did have a problem in that they didn't have any real information about what the key looked like or where it was though, and they needed to get that. One advantage that they did have was that they were in constant communications with all three of them via the satellite communications gear that Stephen, Leslie and the Rabis had come up with.

* * *

As soon as his contacts got him out, Shaw went straight to the Cinders Security office and was threatening Alex to try and make her let him into the base when John came through the door from the main office and grabbed him by the throat, slamming him up against the wall. Chuck, Sarah and Zondra came through from the main Cinders office and Chuck barked. "John! Not out here! Take him inside!"

John just nodded and hauled Shaw into his office and down into the Intersect bunker without letting go of his throat.

When they were in the meeting room of downstairs, Chuck demanded that Shaw tell them everything he knew about the key and where the courier may have it.

Shaw sneered at him. "Why should I tell you anything Bartowski?"

He noticed Walker hold up a finger as if she were counting something off as Bartowski spoke.

"Because you screwed up the mission when you went against your orders and got yourself arrested by making a scene at the airport, so now my agent has to get the key off the courier in your place. Tell us what you know about where he has the key!"

Shaw sneered at him again. "Fuck you Bartowski! Your whore can try and screw it out of him like she usually does!"

He saw Walker hold up another finger and smile as Bartowski turned to the other woman.

Chuck asked Zondra. "Can you see if you can induce him to be more helpful please Agent Rizzo?"

Zondra nodded, saying "Yes, Sir" demurely as she sashayed towards Shaw. His smile grew as she leant in so he got a good view down her blouse, but that abruptly changed to a scream when she drove a knife through his hand into the conference table. A slap hard enough to loosen his teeth cut off his scream, and Sarah held up a third finger with a big smile.

Chuck barked. "What do you know about where he has the key?"

Shaw gasped "Fuck you!" and Chuck said "Agent Rizzo?"

Zondra smiled as she grabbed Shaw's other hand and produced another knife from somewhere and Shaw screamed. "Stop! Stop! I'll tell you!"

She looked disappointed as she let got of his hand and stepped back and Chuck said. "Well?"

When Shaw didn't say anything, Chuck looked at Zondra and she stepped forward again.

Shaw screamed. "Get that crazy bitch away from me! I need medical attention! I have a fucking _knife_ stuck through my hand!"

His blood ran cold at the pain and mayhem promised in Chuck's voice as he said. "You'll need a lot more if you don't start talking... _Right. Now!_ "

That was enough to break him, and he spilled everything he knew about Panzer, the key and the fact that the key was in his checked luggage (he'd scanned Panzer as he passed him at the airport and the locator tag on the key had shown that it was in his suitcase), so they'd need to get the luggage tag that was with his ticket. He also freely admitted that he'd been planning on making Sarah engage Panzer and seduce the key out of him, proving that he was as much a failure of an agent as he was a human being.

Chuck called the information through to Carina and the others while Casey pulled the knife out of Shaw's hand, carefully wiping both sides of the blade off on Shaw's sleeve before politely handing it to Zondra, who thanked him with a smile as she took it from him.

Chuck decided to twist the knife, so to speak. "How the hell did you get through the Farm without having _any_ resistance at all to torture Shaw?"

He turned to Sarah. "Doesn't the CIA include that in its agents' training any more more Agent Walker?"

"Yes it does Sir, or at least it did when I did my training, the bones they broke in my hand in resistance to torture training took a month to heal."

He nodded, mentally thanking her for setting this up for him so well, and suddenly turned to John. "That reminds me Major Casey... has the thumb you broke to get out of your handcuffs so you could rescue us in that operation last year healed properly? I'm sorry, I should have checked on that before, it's just that we've been so busy."

"No need to apologise Sir, I know that you've had a lot more important things occupying your attention. The thumb has healed alright, not a hundred percent though because I don't heal like I did as a teenager. At least we're usually somewhere warm so it doesn't bother me much. Thank you for asking Sir."

"Nothing's more important than the team Major. I _should_ have asked a long time ago, seeing as you did that to yourself to get us out of there..." He grinned. "I'll try and keep you out of any operations we have in the cold from now on, or at least leave you in the lodge with the Après ski bunnies if I can't."

John laughed at that. "Thank you Sir, that would be appreciated."

He threw a field dressing and bandage at Shaw and dragged him off to a holding cell.

* * *

On the plane, Carina had formulated her plan. Because of the probable backup Panzer had on the plane, they would have to be discreet, so they couldn't just tranq him as that would attract too much attention. The only way she could see this working was for her to go to Panzer and engage him, lift his ticket (she was as good a pickpocket as Sarah, as that was part of how she'd supported herself when she was a teenager on the streets) and pass it off to Mei so that she could locate his luggage, then return the ticket while she was distracting him. As their stealthiest person on the plane, Mei should be able to get into the baggage hold, retrieve the key and return to the cabin, passing the key off to Vinnie for safe keeping in case anyone made her.

The plan was good, there was still an element of risk of course, but it minimised that risk for all of them, so they went with it. Carina pulled her part off without a problem, babbling away like a horny bimbo who was into muscles, she distracted him enough by stroking his arm and hinting to him that she she'd like to join the mile high club that he didn't notice a thing as she lifted, and then returned his ticket. She didn't even have to kiss the pig, the worst she had to endure was him grabbing her leg roughly in what was presumably meant to be a caress.

Mei had no trouble slipping past the flight attendants (including the assassin) to get down into the baggage hold, and she got into Panzer's bag and located the key within ten minutes. The worst part for her was seeing all the disgusting porn he had in his bag, but she was back upstairs and had passed off the key to Vinnie and ticket to Carina in a little over fifteen minutes, which then let Carina disengage from Panzer by saying that she better get back before her 'friend' woke up.

Using the 'friend' excuse meant that she had to spend enough time talking to the older man she was sitting next to on the plane and as they were leaving the plane at Orly to pull off the idea that they were together, but he wasn't a letch, he was actually a sweet old gentleman who enjoyed chatting with such a beautiful and captivating young lady as her. At Orly, Carina was taken aside to answer a few questions when they reached passport control, and Mei and Vinnie slipped away while no-one was looking, so they were all punted straight back out to their C70 on the tarmac for the flight home with Panzer and everyone else being none the wiser. They also had the assassin quietly arrested to get her out of circulation, luckily she usually disappeared after an operation so that shouldn't raise any warning flags.

Once they were in the air again, John went to the holding cell and frog marched Shaw out of the building again, telling him not to come back this time.

* * *

When the others got back with the key, they observed all the proper containment protocols as they opened the lock box, and then went through its contents. A few of the things in the lock box raised questions, so they had Jane call Shaw back in from Los Feliz. When he arrived, John grabbed him and marched him into the meeting room, pushing him into the same chair he'd sat in earlier.

As soon as they were settled, the screen lit up with the images of General Beckman and Director Bentley. Jane started off by saying. "Agent Shaw has made a number of serious accusations against you and your team Special Agent Carmichael, can you explain about his arrest at the airport, and how he was injured?"

Chuck looked at the screen. "None of my people had anything to do with his arrest at the airport Director Bentley, that was all his own doing, this is the video from the Airport's security cameras."

He played the clip of Shaw going up to Carina and grabbing her roughly as he spoke aggressively to her (and the audio was clear enough to them to hear what he was saying to her), followed by her giving him a knee to the groin and Airport Security running up to drag him away.

Jane said "Would you care to explain that Shaw? I specifically ordered you _not_ to go anywhere near Special Agent Miller, and yet you caused a scene that almost blew her cover as well as your own when you attempted to force her to seduce the target to get the key _you_ were supposed to be getting... Putting aside the fact that you deliberately disobeyed my orders for the moment... how can you claim that the Intersect team had anything to do with your arrest when it was clearly your actions that caused it?"

Shaw blurted out. "They had me put on the terrorist watch list! That made me miss the flight and it took me hours to contact anyone to get me out of there!"

Jane just asked. "Special Agent Carmichael?"

Chuck shook his head. "I am not aware of anyone on my team doing that Director Bentley, we can check though."

With that he brought up the terrorist watch lists and looked for the name 'Daniel Shaw' with no result, so Jane asked Shaw what he was talking about.

Shaw spat out. "It was under the name 'Roger Moore'!" John snorted at that as Chuck brought up an entry, supposedly added over six months ago, which showed an image that looked much like Shaw.

Jane said. "It appears fairly obvious to me that this was a quite understandable case of mistaken identity from an old record Shaw, and I can assure you I will be noting how your actions jeopardised the mission, as well as how you disobeyed your orders and tried to cover up your own failure with false accusations. Now Special Agent Carmichael, is there any truth in Shaw's other accusation, that you stabbed him the last time he was here?"

"Yes and no Director Bentley, I asked Agent Shaw repeatedly for the information that Special Agent Miller needed to complete the mission, but he flat refused to give us that information, and was in fact quite abusive and derogatory about Agent Miller, so he had to be persuaded. This is the video of the entire incident Director, including him threatening our civilian receptionist to try and force her to let him into the _Intersect bunker_ , and informing us that he'd had detailed prior knowledge of the target and a device that pinpointed the location of the key in Hugo Panzer's suitcase _before_ he checked it in... we could have retrieved the key from Panzer's bag with a lot less risk to my agent _before_ it got on the plane if he'd shared that knowledge! It also shows him admitting that his plan was to force Agent Walker to seduce Panzer on the plane to get the key so that he wasn't at risk himself."

When the video was finished, Jane said. "It is disturbing that you would use these methods on one of our agents Special Agent Carmichael, even with the way Agent Shaw was refusing to give you the information you needed for your agent and withheld the critical information which could, as you said, have allowed the key to be recovered before it went onto the plane with significantly less risk than the operation on the plane required. Why didn't you try contacting me to have me order Shaw to provide the information?"

"We did try to contact you as soon as Agent Miller advised us of what had happened at the airport Director Bentley, but we couldn't reach you, and we weren't certain how long we would be able to maintain contact with Agent Miller. To be honest, I was angry about the fact that my agent had been put in this position by Agent Shaw's unprofessional and threatening behaviour, especially with what he was trying to force her to do, so when Shaw turned up here, once again deliberately jeopardising our team and base's cover, and kept refusing to give us the information that we urgently needed to assist her, and on top of that was saying those things about her, I made the call to treat him as an enemy operative."

Shaw went to say something at that, until Chuck fixed him with a look that chilled him to the bone and he clamped his mouth shut.

Jane nodded. "Oh yes, I _was_ out of cell coverage areas for a few hours that night. While I can't say that I am happy with the approach you took Agent Carmichael, given the video you have shown me, treating him as an enemy operative wasn't an unreasonable call on your part under the circumstances. Could you supply me with a copy of that, and also the recordings of the previous incidents and the Airport video for our records, please?"

Chuck nodded. "Of course Ma'am."

"Have you discovered anything of value in the lock box?"

"All the information on the disks that were in the lock box was four years old, but it was still useful Ma'am, we're liaising with our people in Europe, as well as the DGSI, DGSE and Interpol, to narrow the noose on the Ring's people over there, primarily in France."

Shaw jumped up at that, screaming. "Everything to do with the Ring is _my_ operation! You had no right to open that lock box or look into any of this without me!"

Jane barked at him. "Sit down and shut up Shaw! When Agent Miller returned with the key, as she promised she would, _I_ authorised Agent Carmichael to proceed with all dispatch before the Ring had a chance to close down or move any of their operations as they invariably would once they discovered that the key was gone. And I shouldn't need to remind you of this, but I obviously do, this was never _your_ operation, it was the CIA's operation, but for now it has been formally handed over to the Intersect team because they have proven themselves to be more capable." She nodded to Chuck to continue.

"Thank you Ma'am, we've merged the information on the disks with the later information, such as it is, to configure the search engines to identify Ring activities, as results come in, we're evaluating them, and using them to optimise the search engine behaviour where appropriate."

"Thank you Special Agent Carmichael, is there anything else at this time?"

"Actually, there _is_ Director Bentley!" This came from Sarah as she stood, picking something up from the table and heading for Shaw. Chuck went with her, knowing what this was about.

Sarah held up the wedding rings that had been in an envelope in the bottom of the lock box, asking. "Did you send a married woman into deep cover in an organisation like the Ring by herself without any support for two years Shaw?"

Chuck braced himself to take Shaw out if he attacked her, but aside from snatching the rings off her he didn't do anything, he just looked at the rings and said. "She was Evelyn Shaw, Eve... My Wife."

He looked up at Sarah and said quietly. "We both made the same mistake Sarah, we both fell in love with spies."

From his expression, he actually believed that they were sharing a moment there, even though Sarah was staring at him in horror and disgust, but Chuck put an end to that when he asked in a cold, hard voice. "Did you know about the Ring's loyalty tests for women _before_ you sent your wife into their organisation Shaw?"

Silence came crashing down in the room, as everyone who'd been there when they made Shaw tell what he knew about the Ring knew the answer to that.

Shaw wanted to lie, but even he knew that there was no point in trying so he quietly said. "Yes."

Di hadn't been in the loop for that video conference, but she could tell from the anger in the room that this was something significant, so she asked. "Agent Carmichael, what loyalty tests are you talking about?"

Chuck was having trouble controlling his disgust and rage enough to answer, so Carina did. "When Director Bentley finally managed to force Shaw to give us the information we needed about the Ring, he made a point of telling us about what he'd been hearing from when he first he started looking into them. About how any women who join the Ring are passed around their superiors, and anyone else they're given to and told to look after. They have to do anything and everything they're told to by any of these _men_ without complaint in order to prove their loyalty."

Neither Di nor Jane made any attempt to hide their disgust as Jane asked. "Do you need Shaw for anything else Special Agent Carmichael?"

"Not unless you wish him to be present when we discuss the penalties that need to be paid for this operation Ma'am."

"I don't see any need for him to be present Agent Carmichael... Shaw, report to Los Feliz and await further orders!"

Chuck glanced at John, who nodded and pulled Shaw up out of the seat, frog marching him from the room.

Once Shaw had left the room, Jane looked at Chuck (well, his image on the screen). "So, the penalties?"

"We had two _separate_ incidents of Agent Shaw wilfully risking the exposure of our entire team and base by openly stating the fact that he was _Special Agent Shaw_ to our civilian employee and threatening her in attempt to try and make her let him into the _Intersect Bunker_ , which of course she couldn't do, even if she _had_ known about it before he told her. I was inclined to make them two separate penalties, but I have been convinced to combine them into one penalty of One Million Dollars, that is Seven Hundred Thousand for wilfully putting all the core Intersect Team members at risk, and Three Hundred Thousand for putting the Intersect Team's base and cover business at risk of exposure and increasing the probability that we will have to relocate. That's nothing more than a drop in the bucket compared to what it would cost to relocate our base and create a new cover business but that's the limit of what was defined in the penalties. Then we have Agent Shaw specifically attempting to set me up to go into an operation on the plane unprepared to deal with a dangerous character like Panzer, who in his own words he hadn't gone after himself because he was too dangerous to face, that's another Two hundred Thousand, plus a Hundred Thousand for forcing Agent Miller to engage Panzer on the plane by deliberately withholding information that we could have used to recover the key _before_ it got on the plane, and another Hundred Thousand for attempting to force a married woman to engage in a seduction mission against her will. Added to that we have recorded proof of his plan to force Agent Walker to recover the key and assume all the risk for what was _his_ task, and another incidence of him attempting to force a married woman to engage in a seduction mission against her will, so that's _another_ Two Hundred Thousand. All up that comes to One Point Six Million Director Bentley."

Jane nodded. "I agree with your tally and justification for the penalties Special Agent Carmichael, send the invoice and I will see that it is paid."

"Thank you Director Bentley..."

* * *

Chuck looked to see if anyone had anything else to add, then looking back at the screen, he said "You know that there's a good chance he'll run, don't you Director Bentley?"

Jane nodded "Yes, but I'd be interested to hear your reasoning Agent Carmichael?"

"Well firstly, every male CIA Agent I've ever met bar one believes that he's god's gift to women and can't imagine any woman resisting him. When he made advances to Agent Walker though, she just shot him down and treated him like the pig that he is, that was the first blow to his pride."

"Second, he came in here with the expectation that we'd all bow down to him and do whatever he said, because he was a _CIA Special Agent_ , but we all put him in his place, me most of all I'm afraid, because of the disrespect he was showing my people and the blatant way he was going after Agent Walker."

"Third, he obviously believed that as his superior in the CIA, you would back him in any disagreements with other agencies, no matter what he did, but you were coming down on our side right from the start."

"Finally, and possibly the most significant, was his wife's rings. Now that it's on record about what happens to any woman who goes into the Ring, he would have been desperate to get rid of that evidence. I don't know how the CIA's run, but I expect that proof, in the form of his wife's wedding rings being in there with the last of the intel she'd collected, that he'd knowingly sent his own wife into something like that and left her to fend for herself in that environment for two years to further his own career would kill off any hope of advancement, at least I hope it would. I'm sure that someone like Shaw would have expected at least to be made a Section Head or Deputy Director after he managed to pull off a major operation like this, so this would be a major blow to him."

Jane nodded thoughtfully "Thank you Agent Carmichael, you've presented some angles that I hadn't considered... I've sent agents to his tracker's location to pick him up, what do you think he'll do?"

Chuck considered for a moment. "It will basically come down to just how big his ego is. If he looks at the situation logically, he's likely to run, because he'll know he's finished, and may be facing punishment. If his ego is still what's driving him though, he'll turn up at Los Feliz, confident that Special Agent Daniel Shaw can't lose. The fact that he actually believed that he still had chance with Agent Walker when he knew that we had seen proof that he'd sent his own wife in there to be used and abused for two years implies that his ego will win out."

Jane nodded again "We'll see soon enough, thank you Agent Carmichael."

* * *

With that, they cut the links, but Sarah suddenly grabbed Chuck's hand and dragged him back to the Dungeon. It was obvious that something was really upsetting her, so the others followed.

In the Dungeon, Sarah asked Chuck to bring up Evelyn Shaw's files, and given how upset she was, he didn't ask any questions, just got into the CIA's archives to locate them and bring them up on screen.

As soon as the woman's image came up on screen, Sarah started crying. Chuck pulled her into his arms to comfort her, asking. "What is it?"

Sarah pointed to the image on screen. "I terminated Evelyn Shaw as a double agent in Paris in 2005, while the CAT Squad were being broken up. I was a mess because the CAT squad was being torn apart and I was worried about what my next assignment would be, with good reason obviously, so I didn't question it too much when Graham didn't give me anything more than a picture and a location. I accepted the idea that they didn't know what name she was using at the time because it hadn't been uncommon for me to go through up to a dozen identities in a fortnight when I took on short missions, go in, do the job and move on."

"It didn't click until Shaw said that the woman he put in there was his own wife, because this woman almost welcomed death, I've never seen such haunted eyes before or since, and when he said that, it occurred to me that nothing could be worse than being in a hell like that for years, knowing that it was your own husband who put you there. It shook me up so much that I was going to let her go, but then she went for what I thought was a gun, and I shot her. The gendarmes must have been close because I heard sirens coming straight away, so I didn't have a chance to confirm the kill, or whether she had a weapon, I just ran."

That made Chuck go back into the CIA systems and dig up the kill order. When he located it, he discovered that there was also a video attached to the file and played it. It was a recording of the termination, and from that and the images that Sarah had been sent, there was no question that it was the same woman.

While they were thinking about what Shaw had done to his wife, Chuck had a realisation. "Shit, if Shaw finds out that it was you who carried out the order to terminate his wife, he's bound to come after you for taking her from him, even though he was the one who'd already killed her on the inside. We need to do something about him."

They all nodded at that, and Chuck looked at Sarah. "We need to tell Jane."

She didn't really like the idea, but nodded, as it was the sensible thing to do, so they headed down the small meeting room.

As soon as the Jane and Di were on line, Chuck jumped into it. "Do you have Shaw in custody yet Director Bentley?"

She shook his head. "No Agent Carmichael, he appeared to be coming in as you suggested, but then he got a phone call and pulled over. A few minutes later the trackers in his phone went dead, and when our people got to the location, his car was there, but he was gone."

She watched them looking at each other, worried. "What is it Agent Carmichael?"

"We've had a worrying development in this matter Director." He looked at Sarah and she nodded resignedly, and looking at the screen, she told her and Di pretty much what she'd told Chuck and the others, adding that she'd got Chuck to bring up Evelyn Shaw's records to confirm that the woman she'd been ordered to terminate was her.

Jane looked disturbed about this. "Director Graham ordered this?"

She hadn't missed that Chuck could and did access secure CIA records, but that wasn't important at the moment.

Sarah nodded. "Yes, Ma'am, it should be in the records for March 2005."

When she brought up the files and compared the images from the kill order and Evelyn Shaw's file, she had no doubt that Sarah was correct about who it was that she'd terminated.

The question of _why_ she'd been ordered to terminate her was disturbing, but it'd take some time to get access to the records that could answer that question, and there were more immediate issues to worry about. "You know that Shaw will come after you if he finds out about this, Agent Walker?"

She nodded. "Yes, we've discussed that Ma'am."

"I presume that you are taking all necessary measures to ensure that Agent Walker is properly protected Agent Carmichael?"

Chuck nodded. "Of course Ma'am"

With that they wound up the discussion and broke the connections.

* * *

After they went back to the operations centre Chuck was staring at the image of Evelyn Shaw, and then he suddenly swore and called for Dorothy Baum to come to the Dungeon.

When Dot arrived, Chuck pointed to the images up on screen and asked. "Is that Lynn Mason Dot?"

Dot peered at the image and said. "I think so…..?"

Sarah asked "Does Lynn have a bullet wound around here?" She indicated the area where she'd shot Evelyn Shaw.

This time Dot didn't hesitate. "Yes, she does."

Chuck grabbed the keyboard and checked something, then sent out orders to ready one of the J50s and lodge a flight plan for Houston, Texas, talking as he did so. "Dot, can you go and pack an overnight bag in case we need to stay overnight please? I'd like you to come to Texas with us, Lynn knows you so your presence will hopefully make her more comfortable."

She nodded and headed upstairs.

He glanced at Sarah. "Lynn Mason is working for our security company in Houston, Texas, she joined us in Two Thousand and Five. She must have been taken to hospital and then gotten away before the CIA or the Ring could locate her to finish her off and made her way back to the States."

He picked up the phone to call Auntie Charly and ask her to get ready for a possibly overnight trip to Houston, too, before sending Sarah, Zondra and Carina upstairs to do the same. While they were getting ready (Sarah would get his things), he called Auntie Di to tell her that Evelyn Shaw apparently wasn't dead, and in fact it appeared that she was part of the 'family' now.

* * *

On the J50, they filled Dot and Charly in on what had happened back in two thousand and five, as well as what had happened to Lynn in the two years leading up to that and the fact that her ex-husband was back on the scene causing trouble. They were all spies, they understood kill orders, and knew that Lynn did as well.

Charly also knew that they wouldn't be going to Houston if there wasn't some benefit for Lynn in this, because she'd known Chuck all his life, and she had a fairly good idea of what made him tick.

When Lynn walked into the meeting room and saw the woman who'd almost killed her, she froze, but Dot signalled her that it would be alright, so she came in and sat down. After Dot came around to give her a hug and a kiss, Sarah and Lynn discussed what had happened that night, and the kill order. Lynn confirmed that she _had_ in fact been going for a gun, because it was only when she was faced with her imminent death that she realised that she wasn't ready to die.

As Chuck had surmised, the gendarmes had arrived right after Sarah ran off and rushed Lynn to hospital. No-one had picked up her purse, so she was admitted as the French equivalent of a Jane Doe, and she was lucid enough to pretend to have temporary amnesia. By the time the gendarmes went back to the site, someone had stolen the purse, so her identity was lost.

Lynn knew that the CIA or the Ring, whoever it was who had sent Sarah, would make sure that they finished the job, so as soon as she came out of the anaesthetic and was able to get out of bed, she grabbed some clothes and ran, grabbing the money and passports that she had hidden away and getting out of France as quickly as she could. She took the train to England and then flew to Mexico and used a coyote pipeline she knew about to get into Texas.

While she was recovering in Texas, she'd created the Lynn Mason identity and started trying to establish a new life for herself, approaching investigation and security firms where her mixture of analyst and agent skills would be useful. When she came to their firm there, it was obvious to Charly that she was a burned agent, so they'd checked her out (through Chuck, but she didn't know that at the time) and when nothing too suspicious showed up, they took her on because she had good skills. She'd been there ever since.

They were all thoughtful as they considered how it had happened. Chuck was the one who broke the silence. "How do you feel about your ex-husband Lynn?"

Lynn looked at him. "You mean the one who sent me in there to be a sex slave for those sick bastards for two years to further his own career, and then sold me out to get killed?"

"Yeah, that one."

"I hope he's still alive so I can kill the bastard!"

Chuck nodded. "As far as we know he is still alive, so we may be able to help you with that. He ran after an operation with us didn't go the way he wanted, and we found out that the agent that he had sent into the Ring was a married woman when we got into your lock box and found your rings. He told us that you were his wife, trying to get sympathy I think, but it backfired. I believe that he's actually with the Ring now….. By the way, you didn't know about the sex slave angle before you went in there, did you?"

"Do you think I would have ever agreed to go in there knowing that? No, of course not!"

"Well that's something else you owe Daniel for, because he _did!_ "

Lynn went white. " _No!_ …. He sent me to those animals _knowing_ what was going to happen to me? He argued that I couldn't waste my sacrifice by getting out when I managed to contact him after I'd been passed around for a few months, but he knew that they'd do that to me and _still_ sent me in there?"

Sarah, Carina and Zondra were nodding sympathetically, repeating what he'd told them about hearing about the loyalty tests when he first started looking into the Ring, and Dot went to hold her as she cried.

When she managed to compose herself, Chuck asked Lynn if she knew why the kill order would have been issued on her. Lynn nodded "Yes, I had been extracting information about the Ring's movements and activities and leaving it in dead drops for Daniel. Then, at the start of Two Thousand and Five, I discovered evidence of high level connections between the CIA and the Ring. After a couple of months I managed to find out the code name of the senior CIA connection, and soon after I sent that to Daniel, you showed up to kill me." she nodded at Sarah.

Chuck asked. "Do you remember the code name of the CIA connection?"

"Yes, it was Shaka."

Chuck had a flash and shook his head. "Shit, well that explains the kill order! Shaka was Langston Graham!"

Something else occurred to him then. "Did you manage to find out who he was dealing with in the Ring?"

"I never found out anything but another code name, 'Rasputin', does that mean anything to you?"

Chuck shook his head. "No, I'm not getting anything on that." He hesitated, and then asked. "Lynn, will you come back to Los Angeles with us, and help us chase down the Ring? Everything you gave to Daniel is gone, so what you have in your head is the best information we have on them. The last disks that you had in your lock box took us far further than we'd managed to get before that, so you'd be a great help. And if you really want a chance to go after Daniel, that's where he is and we'll help you."

Lynn looked at him. "How long are we talking about Chuck?"

"At least as long as it takes for you to tell us what you know about them, but I was hoping that you'd join us there permanently, we can do with someone with your skills and you should be safer with our core group. If you have a partner here we could find a job for them as well."

Lynn shook her head. "No, after Daniel and those bastards in the Ring, I'm not sure that I could ever trust any man enough to get close to one again. There's no-one keeping me here, and Texas never really grew on me, it was mainly just somewhere to hide from the CIA and the Ring. I'm happy to move to Los Angeles, but what about my job here? They wouldn't just release me would they?"

Chuck smiled. "Don't worry, Auntie Charly and I can arrange that, so why don't you go pack what you need for the foreseeable future and we can get everything else moved for you. Do you own where you live, or are you renting?"

"Renting, tying up your money in a place doesn't make any sense when you may need to run at any time."

He nodded. "That makes it easier, we'll have someone see about getting you out of your lease or subletting the place for you. Do you need a hand packing your things? I'm sure that Dot and the girls would be glad to help?" He raised an eyebrow at the women and they nodded, saying. "Of course!"

Lynn smiled. "A few more pairs of hands would be a help, thanks!"

* * *

With that, Lynn said goodbye to the few friends she had in the office and headed back to her place with Dot, Sarah, Carina and Zondra, while Chuck and Charly made the arrangements to transfer Lynn to Cinders Security in Los Angeles, made the arrangements for the movers and to handle her lease, and then booked them all into a hotel near the airport.

As things were packed up at Lynn's, they were sent to the airport to be loaded into the J50. Everything was packed and they were back at the hotel by ten that night. They dropped the keys and paperwork off to the people who would be handling everything else for the move, then they went out for a late supper.

At the restaurant, their table attracted a lot of attention, because Sarah, Carina, Zondra, Dot and Lynn were all beauties, and for that matter Charly was still very attractive too, but between Chuck's dangerous look and the very obvious and angry 'Not Interested!' looks they shot at anyone who seemed inclined to come over to introduce themselves, they weren't bothered.

Lynn's story came out over supper. "I was an analyst when I married Daniel, but that apparently didn't meet his expectations, so he cajoled me into becoming an agent so we could became 'the next Turners', whatever that is, because supposedly there would be no stopping us then."

She sighed at that and said. "I should have seen the signs and ran back then when I still had a chance!"

Zondra jumped in with a laugh to try to pull her out of her depression. "Shit, I'd be terrified if Leslie tried to become an agent, the man's a genius, but him with a gun? The possibilities for friendly fire would be horrendous!"

Sarah laughed as well. "Well _this_ one was supposedly a civilian when I found him again, if you can believe it!"

Lynn turned to her. "What do you mean by 'found him again', Sarah?"

Sarah smiled at her. "Well, we were quite literally childhood sweethearts, our mothers are best friends and Chuck's only six months older than me, so we grew up together. Then my father took me with him to use in his cons when he ran off when I was seven. I spent eight years on the road with him as a con artist until I got him to stop so that I could finish school and get a chance to go to university, but even though he'd promised not to, he went back to the con game behind my back and got himself arrested again. Graham caught me and convinced me that he had my Mama in custody, and if I didn't do what he wanted he'd take it out on her, so I did. It was less than two years ago when I was sent after this one that I found out that Mama was safe, and the two of us were finally reunited. Of course he _wasn't_ the bumbling civilian he was supposed to be, he's one of the best there is…. Mind you, with Frost as his mother, that's not so much of a surprise."

Lynn looked confused again. "Frost?"

"Did you ever hear about the Infamous Agent Frost when you were in the CIA?" Lynn's eyes went wide and Sarah grinned. "Yep, that's my mother in law!"

In the morning, it was only a short trip to the airport and they were back in LA before lunch. They were going to set up Lynn up in one of the guest rooms in the Keep until she got settled, but by the time they got to LA it had been decided that she would share with Dot and her son.

* * *

Because they were expecting the Ring to come after them, through Shaw or otherwise, they reconfigured the feeds from the satellite cameras that they had set up for a few blocks all around them to generate alerts 24/7 and they had people manning the screens all the time as well.

Chuck couldn't stop worrying about the danger Shaw represented to Sarah. By himself, he wasn't bright enough to be dangerous, but if he was being coached and directed by others who were, well that could be dangerous.

The issue of Evelyn's kill order brought up the question about what else Graham had been involved in that might come back to bite them. Graham's original files were probably the only place that they'd ever get the answers about the plans for all of them, and he'd been interfering with Chuck and Sarah's families since the eighties, Carina since she was seventeen, and even the way that John had coerced into joining the NSA at the beginning of '89 had a smell of Graham's methods about it, it certainly wasn't approved NSA practice to do something like that. If they wanted to get ahead of this, they needed to find the history of what had been done.

Chuck diverted time to troll through the CIA's archives, and had others earmarked after that, as they knew that the CIA, DEA, NSA, Military and Senate had all been heavily infested with Fulcrum and Ring people, so they probably had to expect that the FBI, DIA, Homeland Security and the rest were infested as well. The immediate problem, though, was that they knew that Graham had been in bed with all the wrong people, and his legacy was a time bomb that they couldn't find the counter for.

While they wanted to comb through all the archives, the current thorn in their side was Daniel Shaw, so Chuck was concentrating on the period of 2002 – 2006, to work out what the hell he was up to. Luckily, Graham had been egotistical and believed that he was brighter than everyone else, so he didn't make a good enough effort to lock down his private files, and once Chuck got through the layers that Graham had used to hide them, he had the template to get into the rest of his files. It was a worry when he found how much he'd missed when Carina came on the team, because he'd only been looking for direct references to the girls when he was cleaning out whatever evidence was being kept on them.

The files on Daniel Shaw weren't that much of a surprise, because they confirmed that Graham had promoted Daniel Shaw to the rank of Special Agent, and made him the one in charge of any and all investigations into the Ring, _because_ he knew that Shaw was lazy and egotistical, and therefore wouldn't make any real effort to uncover anything important. This let Graham kill off any legitimate investigations by the simple mechanism of funnelling _everything_ to do with the Ring into the black hole of Shaw's investigation, where it would disappear. What Graham didn't factor into the equation, though, was the fact that _Evelyn_ Shaw, the ex-analyst, was actually a much better spy than her husband ever was.

When Daniel Shaw told him that he'd managed to insert his wife into the Ring, Graham, or rather Shaka, immediately warned his buddy Rasputin (Who they had yet to identify. There was something at the edge of his consciousness that was telling him that he should know who this was, but he just couldn't put his finger on it.) about her, so she'd been passed around more than any other woman in the Ring in an attempt to keep her too busy and abused to do any investigations. When Shaw kept giving Graham proof that she was _still_ doing a hell of a job, even with everything she was going through, he kept passing that on to Rasputin, who in turn kept ramping up the abuse that she was being subjected to.

Her death warrant was signed the moment that Shaw ran to Graham, eager to tell him that Eve had uncovered the code name of the key Ring contact within the CIA, someone called Shaka. The next time there was a hole in Sarah's schedule that aligned with Evelyn Shaw being in the target area, Sarah was given the kill order for Evelyn.

While Chuck was looking into this (and he was showing Lynn the files that proved how effective she'd been against the Ring), he was also working with Lynn and the others on uncovering the Ring, and they were watching the increasing activity outside. Chuck was burying the fact that he was getting the Ring teams trying to watch them arrested and put away on criminal and terrorist charges by feeding the police information on criminals throughout the entire area, so the arrest rates around Arcadia were going through the roof.

* * *

This dragged on into September... the problem was that someone seemed to be serious about putting pressure on them, because no matter how many minions they got arrested and taken off the streets for the duration, they were being replaced. After a couple of months, though, the other side started changing their tactics... They started using bait, in the form of Daniel Shaw. They started to see Shaw's new black Tesla (the one the Ring gave him to replace the one they made him dump to prevent the CIA tracking him) around the area, and it was like waving a red rag at a bull to them, especially Lynn.

Carina and Zondra tailed Shaw to a building in an out of the way business development even though they _knew_ that he was being used as bait. They called it in when they started following him and stayed back to watch when they reached the building, but when the first ones to arrive were Sarah and Lynn in Carina's Lamborghini, they all decided to give Lynn her chance for retribution. Carina and Zondra quickly changed into the battledress, body armour and helmets that they always carried in the boot and armed up.

Between Sarah, Carina and the toys they'd been provided, there wasn't much that they couldn't break into, and they were soon inside. They quickly took down the dozen Ring agents who'd engaged them on the ground floor with the suppressed AS VALs before attaching the remote access devices (all of their cars were equipped to be relays for the remote access devices) for Anna and the others to take over the systems, disabling the lifts and heading up the fire stairs.

On the first floor, they presumed that Anna had unlocked the door, so they said 'Thanks Anna' and went through. They came under fire in the first open area that they came to though and they had to take cover, as there were at least two to three times as many Ring agents up here.

While they were engaging the enemy, Sarah saw something out of the corner of her eye, and when she looked, she saw Shaw mockingly wave and head through a door way. She called to the others "Shaw's getting away! I'm going after him to stop him. Don't worry Lynn, I won't kill him, I'll leave that to you."

With that, she broke off and ran for the doorway Shaw had gone through. She heard the door close and lock behind her when she followed him, and it sounded suspiciously solid. Shit! This building obviously wasn't what it appeared to be!

The next thing she noticed was that she wasn't alone, as Shaw was still in the room with her. As soon as he started talking, she knew that he wasn't just an pompous fool with a god complex any more, he was absolutely fucking crazy.

Shaw started ranting at her. "I've seen the video Walker, I saw you murder my Eve, and you're going to die for that! First though, you're going to show me what you've given up to Graham, Larkin, Bartowski and everyone else... You're going to show me just how good a fuck you are! Hell, if you're as good as they all say, I may just keep you around for a while and let you make up for taking my Eve away from me…. when you murdered her!"

"Are you really so delusional that you think I'd ever let you lay a finger... or anything else... on me Shaw? There's no way anything like you will _ever_ touch me!"

Shaw let loose a maniacal cackle. "There's nothing you can do to stop me now Walker, the NSA aren't the only ones who have the Intersect, and I have the Ring's Intersect in me now, you don't have a chance against the power of the Intersect!"

Sarah smiled grimly. "Let's see about that, shall we?"

Shaw moved in, supremely confident that she'd be down and he'd have her clothes off in seconds, but as he closed on her, she just pulled her Glock 20 and kneecapped him. When he went for his pistol, she shot it out of his hand, taking half of his hand with it... thinking to herself that Chuck was right about these Ten Millimetre Autos. With that he was effectively disabled so she said "Wait there Shaw, there's someone here who wants to talk to you." and turned back to the door.

She tried calling Anna, but when she couldn't get any signal, she swore, thinking 'I guess that explains why she hasn't got control of their systems yet' and pulled out her digital lock breaking tool to try and get that door disabled.

* * *

Two of their minivans had turned up downstairs by then, and Chuck, John, Bai, Mary, Mei, Vinnie, Sam, Robin, Zoe, Rocky, Marco, Gertie, Javier and Rick had piled out and were running for the building, as they could hear the fire fight going on on the first floor. Chuck had suspected that this would be no ordinary building though, and he wasn't about to waste any time getting through obstacles here, so the guys were were all carrying SOCOM M32 Mk 14 grenade launchers as well as the VALs. They announced their presence by blowing in the front doors.

While they were enabling one of the lifts, Chuck gave them their orders. Rick and Javier would stay on the ground floor to cut off any escapes and try to hold off any reinforcements that may arrive, he, Rocky, Zoe and Bai would take the first floor, John, Mary, Mei and Vinnie the next, and Sam, Robin, Gertie and Marco the top floor. It went as planned... he, Rocky, Zoe and Bai jumped out of the lift on the first floor and took out the ones keeping the girls pinned down from behind. Carina pointed at the door that had closed and locked behind Sarah, shouting that she went through there, chasing Shaw.

Chuck called Sarah (reasoning correctly that if the building was a Faraday cage, the radios would still work inside), and told her to let him know when she was well clear of the door, as soon as she did, he blew the door in with a 40mm High Explosive round and entered the room. Sarah called Lynn in when the door was gone.

When Shaw saw Lynn, he stopped swearing and trying to threaten Sarah and just stared at her, stunned. "Eve, you can't be here, you're dead!"

She gave him a grim smile. "How does it feel to be always wrong Daniel? And how many times do I have to tell you that I _hate_ being called 'Eve'... I always have?"

"We don't have much time, so shut up and listen you bastard! You really are a piece of work Ankles, you hounded me into becoming an agent to further your own career, then you _knowingly_ sent me in there to be passed around as a fuck toy by all of those sick bastards, to be used and abused any way they wanted. And do you know why they knew what I was there for and abused me the way they did, you sick fuck? Because you _told_ Shaka that I had infiltrated the Ring, and Shaka told his buddy Rasputin, who ordered them to abuse and degrade me to try and keep me from looking into them. But stupid me, I was doing it for the man I loved, who loved me, so I endured all their abuse and got you your intel, and you told Shaka, who told Rasputin, so I was abused and degraded even more, do you see the cycle here, you bastard? _Then_ , when I finally dug up the names of the two kingpins who were the primary connection between the CIA and the Ring, you run straight to Shaka and _tell_ him that I've identified him, so he puts out a kill order on me! The only thing that saved me was the fact that Sarah didn't want to kill me, she only shot me because I went for my gun."

"I don't hold what she did against Sarah, she was only doing her job like we all do, but you, you bastard, _you_ sent me in there, knowing exactly what they were going to do to me, not caring what would happen to me as long as I got you the intel to further _your_ career for you before they killed me off! Were you _ever_ faithful to me you pig? I know that you've been chasing women all over the place ever since you thought you got me killed off, but I'll bet that you started as soon as you sent me into the Ring, didn't you, you sick fuck? _Didn't you?_ "

Lynn had been putting bullets into Shaw to emphasise her points, but she was pulling the trigger without anything happening, so Sarah swapped the empty VAL in her hands for one with a full magazine, putting a charged magazine into the one she took off her when she had it. She noted that, for all of Lynn's rage, she was placing her shots carefully to inflict maximum pain without killing him too quickly, except for all those shots to his groin, he would bleed out fairly quickly from those.

Ten minutes later, they were just about done mopping up the rest of the Ring agents in the building (there had been over a hundred of them in there) when Rick advised them that Anna had called to say that the cops were getting close (Rick was in front of the hole where the front doors used to be, so he could get a signal while no-one else could). That was enough to make them quickly finish off the opposition and exit the building, blowing Shaw's head off to ensure that he would no longer be a threat to any of them and activating the Armageddon devices as they did so to wipe out any systems and recordings and fry whatever was left.

Carina and Zondra had made an interesting sight as they ran out of the building, stripping off the armour and battledress so they could change back into the casual clothes they'd been wearing before (as an open top Lamborghini, wearing battledress and edgy cops wouldn't be a good mix). They threw the battledress and main weapons into the boot of the Mustang and jumped into the Lambo, still trying to do themselves up as they took off. They all got the hell away from there, with Carina and Zondra in Carina's Lamborghini and Chuck and Sarah in the Mustang convertible (with the top and windows up to avoid the battledress they were wearing attracting too much interest), while Lynn and the rest were in the minivans.

The four vehicles took off in different directions, and none of them ran into the cops. Back at El Castillo, the four women all got 'talkings to' for taking stupid risks like that, but everyone understood why Lynn had to get closure with her ex husband, Sarah had to make good for the woman she almost killed, and Carina's nightmares about similar scenarios to what Lynn had had to endure drove her to support Lynn in killing her demons. Zondra had mainly gone along to watch the others' backs.

 **A/N: For the purpose of the story, Dorothy Baum was Graham's original Enforcer, he dragged her into his program in Ninety One when he heard that Frost had escaped from Volkoff. She was burned around 2000 because he felt that his hold over her was slipping and Sarah showed more promise so he decided to get rid of Dot before she turned on him. Chuck intercepted the kill order and they got her out. It had been a lot harder to track her son to the farm where he and other children Graham was holding ransom to ensure their parents' compliance were being raised by so-called militant white supremacists and getting them all out of there. From what they got out of the ones running the farm, Graham's plan had been to come in and 'bust' the operation there when they were properly trained so that the kids would see him as their saviour, giving him a ready made covert strike force who were loyal to him. NB: If anyone wants a mental image of Dorothy, it's Lena Heady from the Sarah Connor Chronicles.**

 **A/N2: Ifn ya don't know what 'Ankles' means, I ain't gunna tell ya! ;^)**


	22. Kangaroo Court

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be a few changes in the first hour or so as I tend to fix things that don't look quite right to me in the final form.**

Working with Lynn, they started making serious inroads on the Ring, because she was the one who had uncovered and knew all the information that her ex-husband had been trying to build his fame and fortune on. Whatever information she gave to him had disappeared without anything being done about it back then, so the war on the Ring was progressing faster than it had ever had before.

Most of the agencies they were working with around the world were under the impression that they were getting their incredible results from the search engines that they'd created to dig out intel on the Ring, and they didn't feel any need to correct that misapprehension as Lynn was safer, and happier, if no-one else knew she existed. As well as working on the Ring intel, Lynn was settling well into her Cinders Security cover job, and working quite a bit with Ellie, Emma and the others in Noble House as well, as she was a damned good analyst.

Her private life was also better than it been since before she met Daniel Shaw just out of university, so she was finally getting the life that she deserved. She had taken up with Casey Bracket after she moved to Los Angeles and being in a group that accepted her and Casey without question or comment, other than saying that it was about time that they were both happy, was a new and wonderful experience for her. Lynn had been confused by this at first, but Ellie explained how Anna and Jill had been a part of their lives for eight years up until Jill left, with Chuck pretending to be either Anna or Jill's boyfriend through that period in order to act as a smokescreen for them, and reminded her that Skip had been accepted as gay all along by the family too and Anna was back with Lou now, so as long as they were happy together the family had no problem with any consensual relationships.

* * *

As well as Lynn joining the fight against the Ring, they had Stephen back with them at full force for the first time in twenty years, and this Stephen was almost as much of a force to be reckoned with as his children were. While they were making plans to upload the Cindersect into Stephen to clean out the faulty early version of the Intersect that was doing so much damage to him, Sarah had noticed that the scars that covered Chuck's body were fading, so she and Ellie made him submit to a rigorous battery of physical and neurological tests.

The results of these tests were amazing, as they showed that the damage that his body and internals had been accumulating all his life was being repaired, and this healing wasn't just physical, it was neurological as well. When Ellie went back through the tests that she'd been doing on Chuck at least once a week since he loaded the Cindersect (more when she could get him to submit to the tests), she saw the healing process had been occurring from as early as week one, but the signs had often been so small that she hadn't noticed them when she was checking the results. Cumulatively, Chuck's body had repaired nearly all the damage that had been done to it, and it was showing increased capacity, efficiency and flexibility in nearly all areas, and this process was still on-going.

One thing that had shown up in Chuck's earlier brain scans was areas of damage that had been caused by the earlier three versions of the Intersect and numerous Intersect revisions that had been loaded into him, but those areas of damage were pretty much all gone now, and the brain scans were also showing increases in the number and capacity of the pathways in his brain for memory and cognitive functions. The only thing that Ellie could think of to explain this was that when they moved the physical activity interfaces of the Cindersect down into the areas that controlled the natural brain/body interfaces, they must have somehow managed to trigger the body's core healing processes, the ones that the conscious mind tended to circumvent.

Whatever the reason, they all accepted that this was a damned good thing, but the question remained as to whether this would work for others, or was it only a miracle cure for Chuck? When Chuck and Ellie were debating this, Mary insisted that they test it on her. They tried to convince her that it was too much of a risk, that their father was already damaged and the Cindersect could only improve his lot in life, even if it were a limited time thing, but she was adamant, she still loved Stephen just as much as she ever had, for all his faults and the problems he'd caused, so she was determined that they weren't going to experiment on their father, she'd be their guinea pig.

When they couldn't dissuade her, Ellie put her though the same batteries of tests that she'd put Chuck through, and she cried to see how much damage her mother had accumulated in over fifty five years, as she'd been shot, injured and tortured innumerable times, and the drastic drug treatments and electric shock that they'd used in interrogations had caused more damage to her brain than the Intersects had to Chuck.

Ellie also saw that more than a little of that damage had been more recent, so she demanded to know what had been done to her when she went into Volkoff's world to try to recover Uncle Hartley. Mary admitted that she'd been drugged, tortured or whatever pretty much constantly for the first few months, and any time that Volkoff had doubts about her after Viv was born... and with his lieutenants constantly goading him by questioning her loyalties, that had happened quite often. They cried together over that, and then Ellie loaded the Cindersect into her.

Over the next month, Ellie ran various tests on her mother daily, determined not to drop the ball like she had with Chuck. They saw that Mary's food intake and sleep requirements went up like Chuck's had at the start, but this time they were seeing why, because they were monitoring the progress of her body repairing itself. The damaged areas of her brain were reducing and the pathways expanding, and as they were monitoring the process, they could gauge the effects of this, as Mary reported that she was remembering more, thinking more clearly, coming up with answers more quickly and making connections between divergent but related pieces of information much more easily. By the end of the month, Mary agreed that she was comfortable that the Cindersect should be safe for their father, and they brought him back to LA to put him through the same batteries of tests and then load the Cindersect into him.

When Stephen started showing noticeable improvement within days after they uploaded the Cindersect into him, the others wanted to know what was going on, and when Leslie saw how the damaged areas of Stephen's brain were being repaired, he wanted in, as Ellie's tests had shown him just how much damage the drugs and everything else the CIA had used to keep him controllable for sixteen years had done to him. Zondra wanted to go through this with him, so Sarah and Carina wanted to go forward with it as well.

Before Chuck and Ellie were prepared to go forward with the women though, they made arrangements for Leo Dreyfus to pack up at Red Mountain and move down to Los Angeles to look after the girls, and the rest of them. The reason for this was that, while Chuck and Stephen had had problems dealing with the memories that the Cindersect had unlocked, Mary had had far more, because dealing with the type of things that women had to, especially in the spy business, was even more traumatic than the death and mayhem that they were often involved in. That had been hard for Mary, and as Frost, she'd had to face those elements less than most women agents did, so they were worried about what it would do to the girls, _especially_ Carina.

Leo didn't take much to be talked around, so he'd moved down and settled into one of the apartments in El Castillo within a fortnight. Once he'd settled in, they moved forward with the women's Cindersect loads, which by now had expanded to include Ellie, Emma, Anna, Bai, Robin and most of the women in Cinders Security... most of the men had already gone forward with it.

* * *

It was Mary who came up with the answer to what had been bothering Chuck ever since he'd heard about Rasputin once she had some of her memories unlocked...

Rasputin, Russians, the Mad Monk, the number of Ring connections in the old Eastern Bloc countries, the extent of the political and economic resources that the Ring had access to, Roark and Zarnow running straight to Volkoff for asylum, the only way all those elements together made sense was if Volkoff was Rasputin.

Rasputin's ties with Graham also made more sense if Volkoff was Rasputin, as Graham would have known what buttons to push to gain Volkoff's confidence after Mary was out of the way, given that he had the roadmap for what went on in Volkoff's mind in the documentation for the Agent X profile. Graham had probably been behind Roark's connection with Volkoff too for that matter, as Roark had always been one of Graham's minions and when they looked through his personal records they'd found evidence that Graham had been dealing with Fulcrum up to 2007, but they'd had a falling out when he found out about Fulcrum trying to steal his Intersect project through Larkin. It was quite likely that Graham had been trying to use Fulcrum and the Ring to expand his power base, if he hadn't been behind the two organisations' creation himself.

Chuck kicked himself when his mother put that together, as it seemed so obvious then. While knowing who they were up against was an advantage though, knowing that it was someone as powerful and crazy as Alexei Volkoff was rather daunting.

* * *

When Chuck mentioned that, Mary brought up something else... "You know that I've kept my connections with the commanders of the Spetsbrigada that makes up Volkoff's primary security force?" Chuck nodded. "The ex soldiers who make up the rest of Volkoff's security forces are little more than thugs and glorified security guards. The Spetsbrigada's commanders are the ones who organised the weapons, ammunition and equipment that make up most of our spec ops armouries and I know for a fact that you and John are both known and respected by them and most of their men because many of them had been on operations with or against the two of you. Bry, Marco, Gertrude and over half of the ones in Cinders Security are also known and respected by many of the Spetsnaz troops..."

Chuck waited for her to get to the point, because she knew that he was well aware of most of this.

"Since you cleaned out his aircraft and weapons facility in Two Thousand and Three, Volkoff has kept his Spetsbrigada based on the biggest two of his 'yachts', the Tsarina and Contessa, unless they're on duty guarding his headquarters in Moscow or other key facilities. The Tsarina was the US Tarawa class amphibious assault ship Belleau Wood and the Contessa was the Ivan Rogov class large landing ship Mitrofan Moskalenko. His other 'yachts' are the Princesa, which was the Ataman Platov, the prototype for the Dyugon class fast landing craft that was developed as a bigger version of the Serna fast landing craft, and the Dacha, which was the R One Oh Nine, one of the last Tarantul Three Corvettes delivered to the Soviet Navy. Volkoff got the Mitrofan Moskalenko off the Russian Navy when she was decommissioned in December Two Thousand and Two, you missed out on getting her when you took the Moskva, Minsk and Kiev off him in Two Thousand and Three because she was still being rebuilt. And as you know, he used his connections in the US Navy to get the major overhaul that had just been started on the Belleau Wood in Two Thousand and Three cancelled and had it struck off and sold to him... mind you with her history it probably wasn't too hard to sell the argument that it wasn't worth sinking any more money into her... He acquired the Ataman Platov when she mysteriously _disappeared_ as soon as her proving trials had been completed last year, but he actually got the R One Oh Nine off the Russian Navy and had it rebuilt on the quiet back in Two Thousand and One, the reason we didn't know about it before this was that he'd always kept the Dacha hidden somewhere close to him in Moscow, which implies that it, or something on it, must be very important to him..."

She gave another evil smile. "So important that the Spetsbrigada have been tasked with keeping it safe on the Tsarina now, along with the Princesa... Volkoff has reportedly spent over Three Hundred and Fifty Million US getting the Tsarina, Contessa, Princesa and Dacha rebuilt the way he wanted, including having the Princesa and Dacha converted to more powerful integrated electric water jet drive systems like our Tarantuls and the Mitrofan Moskalenko and Belleau Wood converted to much more powerful integrated electric azipod drive systems like the Leningrad... And in case you were wondering, according to the men who oversaw work on the ships, Volkoff also spent well over Three Hundred Million on the five ships and twelve Serna landing craft you took off him, so you've cost him a lot of money Honey. There are eight more of the Serna fast landing craft and a mix of H Nineties, Seventies, Fifties and Thirties... plus an H One Hundred... on the Tsarina and Contessa too... Volkoff has three of the Guard Spetsrota allocated to guard his headquarters in Moscow and other important facilities at all times now..."

She stopped and gave an evil smile. "Or maybe I should have said 'three of the _remaining_ Spetsrota', because if you leave out the five Spetsrota which are made up of the ship and air crews, all of whom except for the senior ships' officers are trained and quite capable Spetsnaz fighters too by the way, the Spetsbrigada only has six of the nine guard Spetsrota it should have now as Volkoff never managed to get suitable replacements for the Spetsrota of guards and two of crew who came over to us in Ninety Six and two Spetsrota of guards and three of ship and air crews who came over in Oh Three... the only replacements Volkoff could get for them were ordinary cannon fodder that the Spetsbrigada refused to have anything to do with..."

"The thing is, the Spetsbrigada and crews take their orders from their commanders, _not_ Volkoff, and the commanders' doubts about Volkoff have been increasing steadily as his excesses have gotten worse and worse. From talking to them, I'm sure that we can come to an agreement with the Spetsbrigada's and ships' Commanders to have the Spetsnaz forces withdraw when we move to take Volkoff Industries down, and if they did, Volkoff's defenses would pretty much collapse."

Chuck looked at her, nodding musingly. "Most of the world's intelligence agencies would jump at the chance to take Volkoff Industries down, so we shouldn't have too much trouble getting whatever extra resources we may need to move against him, but how are we going to get them to agree and what are they going to do after we take down Volkoff?"

Mary grinned at him, and he saw Agent Frost of yore in that feral grin. "We can get their agreement by letting them join us like the others did, and I want to have them on our side…. man for man the Spetsbrigada are the equal of just about any force in the world except our's, and I'd put my money on them being more than a match for most forces at least three or four times their size. Being based on the Tsarina and Contessa, they will have no trouble picking up and leaving, and the best part is, between what I did to try and isolate him from his lieutenants and them doing everything they could to make him turn on _me_ , Volkoff's been paranoid from the start, and he's gotten even worse since he lost the Burya and Leningrad and then the Moskva, Minsk and Kiev along with his aircraft and weapons facility to you so he's kept everything about the Tsarina, Contessa, Dacha and Princesa and the size and location of the Spetsbrigada a complete secret..."

"He had a purge of everyone he suspected of betraying him after he lost everything in Mexico, so anyone who knew anything about the Spetsbrigada, the ships or his research and development facilities was eliminated and the Spetsbrigada and ships' commanders have ensured that their men don't talk to anyone, so even his own lieutenants don't know much more about them than that there are at least three Spetsrota now... They have no idea how big the force actually is, where they're based or anything at all about the Tsarina, Contessa or Princesa, and _especially_ nothing about the Dacha. So they can just sail off with the ships and it will be as if they never existed."

Mary hadn't finished her sales pitch though and she started going through her key arguments. "Okay, I have a number of reasons for wanting the Spetsbrigada to join us... The first is that as you know, I and many others in our family and friends are ex-sleeper agents... mainly from the KGB... and if most of the world governments found that out we'd be in big trouble….. we're talking black sites or bullets in the back of the head depending on who gets to us first. Second is that the Russian government is still trying to get most of us who were KGB sleepers back under its control and if they decide that they aren't getting what they want, they're just as likely to expose all of us to try and get the other governments to deal with the problem for them. Third, I'm still wanted world wide for being Volkoff's second in command so if I'm caught I'll be looking at a black site or a bullet in the back of the head for that, too. And perhaps most importantly... the only people I really trust not to turn on us at any moment in our own government are Jack, Pam Landry, Jane Bentley and perhaps the DNI and Director of the FBI. I'm prepared to trust Jane, but I don't really know Mike and Bob well enough to say the same about them."

Chuck and Sarah shared a look at that, because that reminded them of the rather important piece information about Jane that they hadn't shared with her or anyone else yet. Ellie was the only one who caught that look, because she was more in tune with Chuck than anyone else and Mary and most everyone else was tied up in her story.

"If any of those things happen, we're in big trouble, because at the moment we've got over two thousand people who can really fight and at least another thousand who are pretty good, but that's nowhere near enough if our government or any other major government turns on us, so personally I'd feel a lot more secure if we added another thirteen hundred or so of the best Spetsnaz troops and crew to our fighting force. We can set them up in cover jobs with Emerald Air, Nonestic Shipping and the security companies and have them rotating through being on duty like the rest of our people, but I'd feel a lot better having them with us."

Chuck nodded as he looked around and asked. "Okay, what's the consensus, do we want to adopt these guys?"

They all nodded in agreement to that, and Chuck assured his mother that he'd look into how they could manage it. At first she'd sounded almost as paranoid as Dad, but her arguments had all been valid, and he could see her point now.

When he had the time, Chuck was looking into the best ways to make his Mom's idea of integrating the Spetsbrigada and the Tsarina, Contessa, Dacha and Princesa's complements into their structure go smoothly. Unfortunately, spare time wasn't something that they had a lot of, because between hunting down the Ring and all of their 'real' work, they were very busy.

* * *

As they were leaving, Ellie grabbed his arm and demanded to know what he and Sarah had been communicating with that look. He shared another look with Sarah and then told Ellie to get Rick and meet them upstairs.

The news that Jane Bentley was Rick's older half sister was a shock, but like Sarah neither he or Ellie took long to come to accept it as a fact. The only difference was that Rick was adamant that Jane needed to know this, so they made arrangements to slip into DC and meet her at home one night.

Having Chuck turn up with Sarah for a private talk was no surprise, as she knew that those two were inseparable now that they'd found each other again, but having his sister's husband there was. She didn't quibble about the plethora of anti jamming devices that Chuck set up before they began talking, but even with them Chuck had to jump to clamp a hand over her mouth to quieten her scream when they told her what they were there for.

They used their secure communications to set up a video call to Jane's mother so that Jane could ask her about her father. Like with Phoebe, what she was telling Jane was doing nothing to refute what Chuck had found, so they showed her a picture of Private Graham that was taken at the camp before he went to Vietnam and she positively identified the man as Otis Jefferies, Jane's daddy.

Jane managed to keep it together long enough to end the call without upsetting her mother, and then they dropped the other bombshell, that Chuck had identified a number of probable siblings, and positively identified at least one.

She had a good idea of who the one he had positively identified was, but asked the question anyway. Sarah fielded that one and introduced her to her little brother Richard.

Hearing that she was Langston Fucking Graham's daughter, even though he hadn't become Langston Graham yet at the time, was not news that she ever wanted to hear, but Rick had called it correctly, she'd needed to know... as it was no longer a dark secret that anyone could blindside her with now. Besides which, she now had a little brother who was not only one hell of a man in his own right, he was part of the family that Sarah had protecting her now, so it wasn't all bad news.

As she knew that Chuck would have investigated them, she asked about her other probable siblings. It wasn't too much of a surprise to hear that her other two probable half brothers and probable half sister were all real pieces of work, drug dealers, pimps and killers, pretty much what you would expect of the progeny of Langston Graham. She did accept Chuck's point that Graham may not have turned out the way he did if it wasn't for what the Klan and white bigots did to his family in North Carolina and those other white bigots from Penn State had tried to do to him because one of their sisters had decided that she wanted to take a walk on the wild side with the team's big black stud... But the fact was that others had lived through trials like that, and more, without turning into monsters like that her _Daddy_ did.

When they were sure that she'd be OK, they slipped out, leaving no more sign than they had slipping in, and flew back to LA.

* * *

In the middle of this, they were dumped into another situation that had been set up by the Ring. John was contacted by Colonel Keller, the one who had coerced him into staging his death back at the beginning of eighty nine and took the phone off him to prevent Kathleen telling him that she was pregnant. Keller told him when and where to meet him, adding that if he didn't see him, bad things would happen to people that he cared about, leaving the threat vague. Given that John had the Cindersect now, the flash that he had gave him chapter and verse on Colonel James Keller, including his dishonourable discharge back in the nineties and his suspected level of involvement with the Ring, so while he wanted to tell the bastard where to shove his demands, he played along, agreeing to meet him at the appointed place and time.

The only things Keller could possibly have to use to force John's cooperation was Kathleen, Alex and his mother, because they were the only things connected with his old life that meant anything to him, so they immediately brought up the feeds from the cameras they had in place around Kathleen and George and Johanna's houses to see whether Keller had anyone watching them. There was no-one there at the moment, but reviewing the recordings they saw that there _had_ been people watching Kathleen and George's house at times, including when Alex was there (she still had her room at the house so she could spend time there with her mother and stepfather), so they knew who Keller intended to use.

Knowing that he'd be followed after he met with Keller, they organised for someone to get one of the Echo Park apartments ready for him. No-one was surprised when Yuri and Rob offered to do that and provide support from Ellie's old apartment, because for all the fact that Yuri's size and expression could terrify most anybody if he tried and he was a force of nature when he had to be, he was really a gentle giant who was always eager to help.

Rob would always put his hand up too when Yuri did, because he was Yuri's partner. Most of the girls, especially the ones who were in relationships (with either sex) preferred to pair up with Yuri or Rob on operations if they couldn't work with their own partners, because for all the fact that all of their guys were gentlemen, it was just more comfortable when there was no issue of attraction involved, and the boys were just big teddy bears.

John met with Keller as agreed at 1900, and Keller tried to make it a friendly chat, but Casey just cut to the chase. "Colonel, you haven't asked me to see you after twenty odd years just to chat about old times, what do you want from me?"

Keller was pissed off that John took the wind out of his sails, but he just went with it. "In the morning, your team will be allocated a trace cell mission for the CIA Secure Archives in D.C. and we need you to collect something for us."

"Who's we, Colonel?"

"The people I work for John, you don't need to know any more than that."

"Actually, I _do_ Colonel."

Keller threw a folder onto the table in front of him. "No. Actually, you _don't_."

John looked inside the folder and saw pictures of Kathleen, and some that showed her with Alex, they all appeared to have been taken in the last six months or so. The threat was clear and as much as he wanted to kill the bastard for threatening his ex and his daughter, he forced himself to look indifferent as he said. "So? Yeah, she was my fiancé twenty one years ago, but she's obviously moved on, because that has to be her daughter with her."

Keller smirked at him. "Keep looking John."

John looked under the photos, and there was the birth certificate for Alexandra Johanna McHugh, born in August 1989, showing Alexander John Coburn as the father, just as Chuck had shown him back when Alex was three.

Keller smirked at him again as he smugly said. " _That's_ why you're going what I tell you to, no questions asked John, because we can get to your daughter and her mother any time we want, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to the cause of anything happening to them."

John really wanted to kill the bastard now, but he couldn't do anything until they had Kathleen and her husband moved to somewhere safe.

"What do you want me to get?"

"If you keep pushing me by asking questions, John, we may have some fun with them just to teach you a lesson, Kathleen is still quite a looker, and so is your daughter."

"If you or any of your men lay one finger on either of them Keller, I'll tear you limb, from limb, from limb!... How the hell am I supposed to know what to take to bring this thing out if I have no idea what it is? Do I need a trolley, a bio containment cylinder, a lead lined box, what?"

"Relax Major... You can put it in your pocket…. here." Keller threw a digital key on the table. "That's the key for the box. I expect to hear from you as soon as you return with what you've been sent for Major!"

With that he told John to get out.

* * *

John made as much effort as would have been expected to shake his tails on the way back to Echo Park, but made sure that he didn't actually shake them, as the casual scene at the poker table was something that they wanted the Ring to see. About fifteen minutes after he got to 'his' apartment, Rob went over and asked if he was still on for the poker game. His response was the equivalent of 'Hell Yeah!'

In Ellie's old apartment, Yuri, Mike and Tara were already seated at the table, and they dealt the cards as soon as John and Rob sat in. No sound could escape the apartment, and the light had been set to illuminate only the surface of the table, so any watchers wouldn't be able to lip read easily, especially as they would have to use telephoto lenses from outside the complex. The big screen up on the wall where it couldn't be seen from outside was split to show Di and their teams sitting in the various control centres, and as soon as they'd started playing, John outlined what Keller had told him.

As soon as John mentioned the pictures of Kathleen and Alex, they started debating who they had who were the closest matches to Kathleen, her husband and Alex, while Chuck got into the CIA's systems (it wasn't accurate to say that he hacked in, as he still maintained back doors that gave him access any time they needed to get in) to find out just what it was that they were trying to blackmail John into stealing. They also had a covert team pick up Johanna and take her off to a 'quilting retreat' for a few days, just in case Keller had ideas about using her as his backup plan.

Not surprisingly, Chuck had his answer first, and he went on to find out just what Laudenol was and what it was meant to do. What he found worried him, because he didn't want to think about what the Ring wanted an experimental battlefield drug that turned off all emotions and pain for.

Knowing what the drug was supposed to do, there was no way that they were going to hand it over to the Ring, so Chuck and Ellie sat down to go through the frighteningly comprehensive database of drugs and poisons that had been included in the Fulcrum Intersect's database. Between them, it only took about half an hour to come up with a cocktail that would effectively simulate the effects for about an hour of two, but would make the subject useless for a while after that.

While they were doing that, Di came back with confirmation that the DNI had just privately advised her that the Ring had gotten its bought politicians who'd been planted on the oversight committees to insist that it _had_ to be the Intersect Team which did the trace cell mission, and the official notification would be coming through in the morning. So they had the mission tomorrow as Keller had told John they would. The Ring's confidence that as one of the team doing the trace cell mission, John could get the drug out of the Secure Archives without trouble, whereas it would be almost impossible to get it past all the scanners that would be active if they had to go through the normal processes was probably justified, because once they'd successfully gotten through all of the Secure Archive's defences for the trace cell mission it was unlikely that anyone would be doing anything but congratulating them.

Now that Chuck and Ellie had created the placebo though, what John would leave the archives with would be a fake that would do nothing more than simulate the effects for an hour or two, while the real Laudenol would be safely locked away in the box that they were being allocated for the test, and their team was quite capable of the requisite sleight of hand to do the switch without any cameras in the Secure Archives picking up what they were doing.

There _were_ still two big problems with the situation though, the first of course was that they had to protect Alex, Kathleen and her husband and Johanna from Keller and the Ring. The other was that they had no idea about what the Ring's ultimate goal was here. The fact that they wanted the Laudenol for some nefarious purposes was obvious, but they'd exposed some of their heavy hitters and used the leverage they thought they had over John to ensure that it was the Intersect team who stole the Laudenol, so they were obviously coming after the team. The question was why were they investing this much into trying to bring the Intersect team down?

It didn't take long for it to be agreed that Cam, Michael and Fi were close enough matches to Kathleen, George and Alex's size and build to pull off replacing them when they finished being made up, and there would also be a backup team hidden in the house in case Keller's men came in hard.

When they were all ready, they checked again for any watchers and confirmed that there were none at the moment, so they were clear to go in. John had called Kathleen to explain the situation and they'd stay inside with the place locked up until the team arrived. With that, the team took off while they had the clear window. They'd be staying under lock down at the house until this was all done, with only Michael leaving to maintain the pretence that George was going off to work. When Kathleen and George were brought in, they were set up in one of the spare apartments on the Third Floor so that they wouldn't have to stay down in the Dungeon for a few days.

* * *

The call for the trace cell mission came in in the morning as expected and the core team flew to D.C. to complete it that night. Everything went as planned, John furtively got the Laudenol from the box it was in, then handed it off to Sarah when she handed him the note that was in their 'target' box, she locked the actual Laudenol away in the box without anyone seeing and they got out of there.

When John went to hand the 'Laudenol' off to Keller, Chuck and Mary rode the last leg to the rendezvous strapped to the bottom of his SUV, while Sarah, Carina and Zondra were under a cover in the back. As expected, Keller had a force of over thirty men there, as they were expecting some sort of attack, but they relaxed when John turned up apparently alone and went in to talk to Keller.

Chuck and Mary gave them time to settle down, then released themselves and started taking out the ones on that side of the cabin with their Silent Revolvers and AS VALs. As soon as everyone who could see the SUV was down, Chuck gave the all clear and Sarah, Carina and Zondra jumped out to join the fun. In less than a minute, all of Keller's men were down without any of them getting a shot off or raising an alarm.

After they'd taken out all of Keller's men, Chuck, Sarah and the others were standing out at the SUV discussing the issues that were building up against them. The fact that Sarah was the one that noticed that something was happening in the cabin first showed just how much this was effecting Chuck.

"Chuck, there's movement inside."

Chuck faced the cabin just before the front door was wrenched open, and he looked a very worried looking Keller in the eye as John said something behind him.

* * *

Inside the cabin, Keller was pissed off, because this was the second time that a discussion with John Casey hadn't gone the way he'd planned. He was waiting on word from his men that they had acquired the ex-fiancé and the daughter. With that he could make John an offer he couldn't refuse, _'_ _J_ _oin us or we'll take turns with your daughter and ex-fiancé until they're finished_ _and make you watch'_ , but the call still hadn't come for some reason, so he was trying to stall for time, and Casey had never been much of a conversationalist.

Eventually, John snorted and said. "Stop looking at your phone Keller, your men at Kathleen's house will all be dead or captured by now."

Keller froze, but John went on. "I know what sort of creature you are Keller, so the people I work for got Kathleen and Alexandra out last night."

When Keller went to say something, John shook his head with a grim smile. "No, the two women that your men have been watching are two of the agents that we put in the house to capture your men."

Keller ran for the door and threw it open to call for his men, only to see that all those in sight were down, and another man was standing there with four women, looking at him. John spoke up from behind him. "That's my boss, and he wants to have a word with you."

Keller looked into the eyes of the tall man outside, and knew that he was in serious trouble as the man headed towards the cabin.

* * *

Chuck nodded to John and John grabbed Keller by the shoulder, dragging him back into the cabin. As they went inside, Chuck asked Sarah to find some rope or something as John swept everything off the table. She found some cord, and John hoisted Keller up onto the table to tie him down.

John and Mary convinced Chuck and Sarah to leave the cabin while they made Keller talk. Keller was one of the most senior members of the Ring's American operation, because he'd been one of the original core group recruited to build the North American part of the organisation after his dishonourable discharge back in the '90s. They couldn't afford not to get what was in his head, as it would help them make an impact against the Ring, so they had to make sure that Keller wasn't allowed to die before he gave up everything that he knew. That wasn't going to stop John making Keller pay for what he had been planning for Alex, or Kathleen though, and Mary gave him plenty of helpful suggestions on the best way to do that.

While John and Mary started on Keller, Chuck and Sarah went out to help the others move the bodies of his men into the shed out back, so that the animals wouldn't get to them before the cleaner crews were brought in. They went over the bodies and removed all weapons, devices, identification, anything that they had on them that may be of use, before they threw the bodies in the shed, tossing everything they took off them into the back of John's SUV. When they were done, they went back inside.

After about two and a half hours, John and Mary called Chuck and Sarah back in and looked at them, bemused. Keller was giving up what he knew, that wasn't the problem, the problem was that in that time, they'd barely scratched the surface, this bastard was a gold mine.

When he looked at them, John said. "We're going to have to take him back, this is going to take days, maybe even weeks."

Chuck nodded grimly, and stepping up to Keller, stuck a tranq dart into his carotid artery. They untied him from the table, secured his hands and feet and put him in the back of the SUV, tying his hands up high enough that he couldn't reach anything. Then all of them went through the cabin to make sure that they didn't leave anything of use behind.

* * *

Mary, as their best 'interrogator', was putting Keller through at least one or two interrogation sessions a day, but after two weeks the end still wasn't anywhere near in sight, because as they had determined out at the cabin that night, he was a gold mine of intel on the Ring and other nefarious activities.

It eventually took nearly a month to get everything that they thought that they were going to get out of Keller, and then they let John do what he'd been desperately wanting to do ever since he'd found out Keller's plans for Alex, process him appropriately.

As Mary had been extracting what Keller knew, the others had been following up on the leads he supplied. They had two advantages here, the first was that the Ring had obviously presumed that Keller had been killed along with all his men (Because none of them had ever turned up in any NSA or CIA black sites, and there was no hope of ever identifying any bodies that the cleaners processed.), and they hadn't bothered clearing out the facilities and groups that Keller knew about. That meant that the team had a lot of live leads to follow up, and they were making quite a bit of headway.

The second was that Keller had been keeping his knowledge of Kathleen and Alex to himself as his ace in the hole with the Ring, so he'd never shared it with anyone. That meant that, with him and all of his men dead, it was safe for Kathleen and George to go home.

The week after they finished with Keller, even though they hadn't managed to track down any serious intel on what the Ring was planning themselves, they found out from the Ring what they were up to. The Intersect team was called back to D.C. for what was supposedly the after action briefing on the trace cell mission for the CIA's Secure Archives. What their purpose seemed to be though, was to stop the team from interfering with the Ring's plans at what was apparently critical juncture. The Ring had spend the time scraping together enough of their heavy hitters, senators on oversight committees, three and four star Generals and senior agency people, to ensure that they dominated the 'committee' that had been put together to preside, under the direction of a four star General Merriweather, over a kangaroo court in order to ensure that it handed down the findings they needed it to, to get the entire team out of their way.

The Ring had played their cards well with this, as they actually caught them out when they arranged for Chuck, Sarah, Casey, Carina and Zondra to come to a given room for the Secure Archives Trace Cell after action briefing. When they entered the room though, it was in fact set up as a court room, and they were held at gunpoint while they were disarmed and relieved of their phones.

At the same time, a military escort forced their way past Di's assistants to burst into her office and take her straight from there to the 'court room' without any chance for her to contact anyone. This was apparently planned to let them do an end run around the DNI, and therefore the President, in order to disappear the entire team (including Di), before anyone found out anything about it.

What the Ring didn't realise, of course, was that Di's Aide De-camp was on the line to the DNI's private number as soon as they were out of the office. Or that the fact that they hadn't known exactly what was going on didn't mean that they weren't suspicious when the people who had ordered the trace cell mission were suddenly insisting on a face to face after action meeting over a month later with a team that was based on the other side of the country, so Mary, Charly, Bai, Marco, Gertrude, Ilsa, Mike, Mei, Vinnie, Yuri, Rob, Rick, Rocky, Zoe, Javier, Sydney, Alex and Vicky were all in town with their support team to back them up if necessary. Ellie, Emma, Lynn, Anna, Jeff, Pete, Leslie, Stephen and the rest of the tech team were also there to follow any trails and determine what was going on. As soon as Di's Aide De-camp called the DNI, he called Ellie, and the tech team leapt into action to try and locate them. (Everything had been set up in the DC operations centre to handle what they expected to happen as soon as they got there.)

Inside the so-called 'court room', the proceedings were going pretty much as expected for a kangaroo court, they were given no opportunities to present any evidence that could refute any of the charges against them or answer any questions properly. The Ring also trotted out Kieran Ryker as the special agent who'd supposedly been investigating the group for years now to unsettle them. Ryker had been Sarah's handler on her later solo missions and thought that he knew how to push her buttons.

Ryker kept hanging around their table trying to goad Sarah about how he'd be dealing with any of her friends who got in his way, but he wasn't making them worried and unsettled, he was giving them something to focus their anger on, so he actually helped them there.

The ' _court_ 's first shot was the 'theft' of the Laudenol, as they'd made sure that it had been confirmed to be in the box the afternoon before the trace cell mission, but when they did a 'random check' a few days after the trace cell mission it was missing. The team didn't let on that it was still in the Secure Archives, as they wanted to see what the Ring's game was. The DNI and the President knew exactly where it was and the DNI had the key (which no-one had ever bothered to ask for), but there was no sense in giving the game away until they had to. Chuck's question about why it had taken over a month to follow up on the theft of the Laudenol was brushed aside.

The 'court' kept bringing up the issue of what they'd done to turned agents on missions and numerous other items, such as so-called psychiatric evaluations done on them by CIA psychiatrists that none of them had ever seen were presented as 'evidence' of how unstable Chuck and the others were, citing their 'unprovoked' attacks on CIA officials and their barbaric treatment of prisoners, such as the SIS agent, Barker.

The 'court' also showed doctored footage of what Lynn did to Shaw when she killed him, but it had been doctored to show it as Sarah who'd done it. They had also doctored the footage of the events leading up to it (to hide the fact that Chuck and the others blew the front doors in _after_ Sarah was engaged by Shaw). The very fact that they had footage from within that Ring building was the final proof that it was the Ring who was doing this, and Chuck kicked himself, as he should have put that together before they got tricked into entering this room... He just hoped that the malware from the Armageddon devices they'd activated in there before they left the building did some serious to whatever systems the live feeds were going to (they _had_ to have been live feeds to get that footage because the malware would have wiped out everything on the systems inside the building). They also presented falsified medical reports and yet more doctored footage to try and show that Chuck, Sarah and Casey had been instrumental in Sullivan's death, after they'd had the altercation with him previously.

The fabricated or doctored evidence was laying it on pretty thick that all five of them had been involved in unjustified deaths and attacks in many instances, and they were also accusing Di of fabricating evidence to cover up their other "killing sprees" and activities to keep her team out of prison while she used them to build her empire for nefarious purposes.

The 'straight' members of the committee who'd been brought in to make up the numbers needed (and who had actually been told was merely an informal hearing of no import) kept asking to see this other evidence that the General and her team were talking about, but were being overruled every time, and they hadn't allowed to stand down and leave once the 'court' proceedings had started.

The outcome of the 'hearing' had been a foregone conclusion from the start, so it was no surprise to see any dissenters from the findings of the Ring representatives on the committee being overruled, and they were all sent away to be locked up pending sentencing. The problem at that point was that Di had been taken somewhere separate from the rest of them. They later found that this was because _she_ was the one who was deemed to be crucial to the Ring's plans, so they had to keep her hidden from the proper authorities. At that point, Chuck and the others were regarded as more of a nuisance who would no longer be a problem once they had them locked up (Di pissed herself laughing when they showed her the evidence later that the Ring believed her to be the mastermind behind everything the Intersect and Spectre teams had achieved, and therefore the biggest threat to their plans).

* * *

Di's separation from the others meant that when Anna, Jeff and co engineered a brief power outage just as Chuck and the others were being escorted to their cells, she remained in the CIA's custody. As soon as the lights went out, the team had no trouble overpowering their guards and taking off. They followed the trail of flashing lights that was directing them to their exit point, ducking into rooms that Anna and the others opened or indicated whenever the search parties were getting too close to them.

Rocky, Zoe, Mei and Vinnie were waiting in one of their armoured electric vans when they got out of the CIA facility. As soon as they'd hopped in and the transport was closed up, they just rolled away silently and blended into the traffic, so as far as the CIA could see they'd just disappeared the moment they left the building.

They went back to the safe house where the others were via a circuitous route, and everyone else was waiting for them when they got there. Chuck immediately took over the search for Auntie Di, because as good as the others were, this was the Piranha's world. None of them were surprised when Chuck had identified her location and taken control of the security system for the facility to allow them to communicate with her (using a light in her cell to send morse code) in less than fifteen minutes (after all they'd been in a CIA building).

That was where things turned in their favour, because with Gordon's ego and limited intelligence, he hadn't been able to resist going to Di's cell and boasting to her about what they were going to do and how she couldn't do a thing to stop them. What she managed to pass on to them before they saw someone heading for her cell was that _she_ had actually been the primary target for this operation. While they'd wanted to get Chuck and the rest of the team out of the way, at the moment the Ring's priority was just to prevent them from interfering with their main objective, which was why they were being locked up to get them out of the way.

What had been behind the current operation was the fact that Di had been selected to chair the Global Intelligence Chiefs' Conference that was coming up in a couple of days in Washington, and this Conference was bringing most of the heads of the world's intelligence communities together in one room. _That_ was why the Ring had needed to remove her, so that they could replace her with their own man, the Acting DCIA of course, because they had serious plans for that conference.

As they already knew, the Ring had people in positions of power throughout the world's intelligence communities, but they were planning to use this Conference to stage a coup and wipe out anyone with any power or influence in the Global Intelligence Community that wasn't bought and paid for by them, by way of a fake terrorist attack at the Conference. Their plan was then to simply replace the ones they'd killed with their own minions and through that, take control of the world's intelligence communities. A major side benefit to the Ring in this was that the 'terrorist attack' would discredit the United States in the eyes of the rest of the world, due to so many prominent figures being killed while they were under the protection of the United States. Once they controlled the intelligence communities, they would be able to use them to influence their governments enough to let them do whatever they wanted. The most frightening aspect of this plan was that, unless the Spectre team managed to stop them here and now, they would most probably succeed!

Gordon had let slip something huge when as he was taunting Di though, and she was fairly sure that he had no idea that he'd done so. Apparently all of the Ring Elders were going to be there at the conference, because they were all highly placed officials in the intelligence agencies of Europe and Eastern Europe. They were also egotistical enough to want to be there to savour their moment of victory over the established order.

* * *

They kept the link open to keep an eye on Di, in hope that they'd be able to intervene if any moves were made against her, while Chuck slipped out to fill the DNI in on what was happening and get his help to organise the other forces that they would need to stop this. He would have preferred to go to Uncle Jack, but it wasn't worth the risk to get into the White House. They had their own support teams available to take out the fake terrorists and other forces that the Ring fronted, and he'd already made the plans to organise them and ensure that they'd be here in time before he went to the DNI.

The problem was that they couldn't show their hand, or their faces for that matter, yet, so they needed the DNI to fill in the President and the rest of the good guys. This was necessary to ensure that when this all went down, they'd have the full weight of the government behind them to head off the potential bloodbath which could occur if the legitimate authorities started reacting to the events that were about to occur. This would also make Uncle Jack look good and give him a lot of political prestige around the world.

The DNI also had to be the one who made the arrangements for the quiet arrests of the significant Ring figures who'd been outed by the Ring's kangaroo court, Keller's testimony and other things they'd uncovered. These included the National Security Advisor, the Administrator of the DEA, the Deputy Directors of the CIA, NSA and FBI, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and General Merriweather and all the others that the Ring had planted on the committee for that kangaroo court. The Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency would also be arrested of course, but his arrest had to wait until after Chuck and the others took him down.

* * *

To deal with the Acting DCIA and the Ring Elders, they would need to be inside that Conference, so they went hunting for suitable delegates to take over the invites from. It didn't take too long for Chuck to identify one female and one male delegate who wouldn't be coming, and were close enough to Sarah and Chuck's size and build for them to assume their identities. Chuck removed any records or indications that they weren't going, inserted travel details that would get them there in time from their official departure points, and amended the details on file so that they would have no problems with getting in, while Anna and the others ensured that Zondra, Carina, Robin, Marco, Gertie, Ilsa, Bai, Mei, Vinnie, Zoe, Michael, Javier, Sydney, Dot, Cam and Casey Bracket could get in the back way without being detected.

John, Bry, Mary, Rocky and Rick would be coming in the front doors with their Support Teams as soon as they'd taken out the Ring forces who were pretending to be terrorists. It had been decided that they were the best known after Chuck with the military and agencies, and that well known faces would help when dealing with the 'legitimate' security forces if they turned up early.

By the time the conference started, they had everything in place, and Sarah and Chuck had no trouble getting in, disguised as their assumed identities of the missing (Spanish and Russian respectively) delegates. It had been quite easy for Sarah to distract Gordon with a little cleavage and fawning as she slipped a phone into his pocket, and then she stood watch over Chuck while he reconfigured the Audio Visual system to accept a feed from the office allocated to the Acting DCIA.

Once Gordon took the stage, Sarah called him on the phone that she'd planted on him to tell him that they were onto him and that she knew that the Ring Elders were there, and kept pushing his buttons until he sent messages to warn the Elders to leave the Conference. The Elders all took Ring Agents they had in their delegations with them for protection, which they hadn't planned for, but they could deal with that. With that done, Gordon asked where she was and she taunted him a little more before she told him that she was in his office, of course, knowing that he'd come after her straight away.

Gordon entered the office cautiously, and he was taken aback to see what Sarah looked like at the moment, but his ego made him underestimate her so he decided that he could afford to wait until he found out what she knew before he killed her (as expected, though of course he never had a hope of besting Sarah). She had her fun, playing him like any other dumb mark and feeding him the prompts needed to make him boast about everything the Ring were doing.

All it took to keep him unsettled and off balance enough to tell everything he knew was to slip in a few questions... 'Just between us girls'... now and then about whether sex with Graham had _really_ been good enough to make him willing to do everything Graham told him to after the Klan had faked a hero's war record for him to get him into the CIA _and_ got him promoted to station chief while he was in his twenties without ever really being a field agent by salting his record with reports from other agents' successful missions. She commiserated with him about how that had backfired when his record had gotten him posted to Ghana in the Mid Sixties because they wanted a man of action on top of things there, but said that he'd sure shown Moses Noble who was boss when he got him killed. She played Devil's advocate by musing that she supposed that Graham _had_ done more for him in the twenty five years they'd been together than the Klan ever had though, taking him with him as he rose to the top of the CIA... and laughed about the irony of the fact that he'd actually become Grand Dragon of what was left of the Klan in Alabama as a _result_ of his relationship with a black man.

Gordon was furious about what she was saying, but Bartowski and those damned newspaper articles had already outed most of it and she'd be dead before she had a chance to tell anyone else about the more incriminating things he'd admitted to and claimed as he spat out angrily that that uppity Nigger Noble had had it coming, trying to make people think he was some sort of war hero and better than real agents the way he was... and so did Graham so _he'd_ used Graham to get what he was due!...

Sarah almost blew it then because she snorted and muttered.. "Having him screw you whenever he felt like it was _you_ using _Graham_?" But luckily Gordon didn't notice because he was on a roll, going on about how he'd played Graham to get himself the advancement he deserved... Others heard and noted it though.

When he'd given up enough information to prove the case against him and the Ring to any doubters, Sarah interrupted him, hitting a few keys as she asked him. "Are you aware, Director, that my husband is a technical genius? Well he's a genius at everything, but he's _especially_ good with technology."

She turned the screen around to face him and thanked him, because without his help they may not have been able to convince some of the people at the Conference of the truth. Only when he saw himself on the screen did he realise what she'd done, or more to the point, what she'd tricked him into giving up and admitting, and he grabbed his pistol to start firing wildly at her.

She ducked below the edge of the desk before anything came close to her and worked her way around the desk to pop out around the corner and put a bullet into his shoulder, making him drop his pistol. That done, Sarah took out some of her anger at the bastard by getting a few extra hits in before she took him out with a kick to the head, tranqed him and secured him. She collected his pistols and magazines before taking out all the phones and shorting out the door locks to ensure that he would stay where he was while she ran to back up the others.

By the time she was done with him, the Ring Elders were committed to their attempt to escape via the rear stairs, but they had found Marco, Gertie, Bai, Ilsa, Mei, Vinnie, Zoe, Michael and Javier waiting for them at the exit. The two dozen or so Ring agents who went with the Elders as guards drew their weapons to engage them, but they didn't stand a chance, as the team at the bottom was well entrenched with assault rifles and body armour. When they saw what was happening, the Elders and the rear guard turned back, only to find that exit blocked by Carina, Zondra, Robin, Sydney, Dot, Cam, Casey, Chuck and Sarah (who had been given body armour and weapons when they arrived), so they were now fighting on two fronts. All of the Elders' guards were down within a minute, either dead or wounded.

The elders and their guards didn't go down without a fight though, so quite a few of them were injured and they lost Javier, Ilsa and Sydney in the fighting. Their main teams who went in the front door had had an even harder fight on their hands, because the Ring had sent its first string operatives to make that strike, and they lost Uncle Buck, Auntie Phoebe, Uncle Mike, Yuri, Rob, Alex Forrest and Vicky there. Losing Uncle Buck, Uncle Mike and the rest of the close 'family' members like that devastated Chuck, all the more because he felt responsible. Even though Bai and Rocky had lost both of their parents now (well Rick had too, but like the rest of them he thought the world was a better place without _his_ father) Bai, Rocky, Rick, Belle and their children Lexie, Benjie and Sam and Gypsy all tried to put their own grief aside and console Chuck... Because everyone could see that, even after doing everything he could to get Auntie Phoebe and Uncle Mike and Uncle Buck to take backup support roles, even going so far as to say that they were too old to be going into close quarters combat like this because they were pushing sixty, he held himself responsible for this. They'd argued that Bry and Mary were there and insisted that they didn't have enough people for them to sit this out, assuring him that they'd be fine... Bai, Rocky, Rick, Belle and their kids knew that Chuck had done his best to stop them and tried to tell him that this was how they would have wanted to go, fighting the good fight, but Chuck wouldn't be consoled, and not about Sydney, Javier, Yuri, Rob, Alex, Vicky or Ilsa either.

The Elders and their living guards were quickly secured and taken out via the exit that they'd been trying to escape by. They were all going to be interrogated, but not in any official capacity, because few of the methods that would be used on them would be even remotely legal. That wasn't something that Chuck or the others wanted to do, but playing by the rules when the other side had nothing but disdain for those rules was just a recipe for failure, and failure here had far reaching consequences that were too severe to be risked... and losing ten people they cared about helped stiffen their resolve.

The Acting DCIA was the only exception, he was too visible to disappear that way so they left him in his office to be arrested by the authorities, but they knew that he wouldn't have been trusted with anything of any great value anyway. The Ring had always played a smart game, and smart people didn't trust idiots like that with their real secrets.

* * *

They didn't get to leave D.C. until a while after the Conference because they were stuck having meetings with the President about what happened, and the foreign dignitaries that they'd saved that day as well. John, Bry, Mary, Rocky and Rick had collected the information and pictures of their targets from the Ring assassins masquerading as terrorists, and this intel, along with the Ring's plan, had been shared with all of their targets, and also what a great loss the family had borne to prevent this. The President communicated their findings in regard to those agency heads who had already been bought by the Ring with their relevant heads of state, but while most used that intel to begin cleaning house aggressively, the reaction that he got from some of them showed that the heads of state had themselves been part of the Ring's plot.

Chuck and the team were queried about the Elders and others who'd disappeared, but they didn't share anything about that other than that they'd been disposed of. The DNI was the only one questioning them who knew Chuck well enough to read his expression when he gave his response (Jack didn't ask as he knew what they'd have to do), so only he realised that they were going to be taken somewhere to be interrogated before they were actually disposed of.

Jack overrode all objections from the old school war dogs and had all of their people buried with full military honours, actually telling the public how Buck and Mike had been set up to take the blame for their superiors' decisions and deflect the outrage over Grenada and Panama and Phoebe and other agents had been burned because they knew things that could cause problems for powerful people.

* * *

It took them over a month to process the Elders and the others they'd taken alive with them. Even with John, Gertrude, Charly and Marco sharing the load of interrogating them with Mary to process them quicker though, the sheer volume of intel they were getting from them took a while. As they extracted the intel, it was passed on to the others to follow up, and within two months of the attempted coup, the Ring had been all but eradicated.

As far as they knew, aside from the unknown factor of Alexei Volkoff, all that was left of the Ring out there by that stage was the dregs who'd run before the hammer came down. One thing was certain, other than Volkoff, not one of the major players that they'd identified was still holding any position of authority, and that had caused a major shake-up of the intelligence communities and governments around the world, as well as the United States' military, intelligence agencies and government.

* * *

The President and the DNI had inducted Jane Bentley as Acting DCIA as soon as Gordon was arrested, and once the Ring clean-up operation was wound up to the powers that be's satisfaction, Chuck, Sarah, Ellie, John and the rest of the senior members of the team who'd come to D.C. to support them in stopping the Ring's plan were called back to attend her formal induction into the position of Director of the CIA, and Pam Landry's formal induction to Director of the National Clandestine Service in April 2010.

Of course, there were other reasons to call them to D.C. as well. Chief among them was the fact that the powers that be had used the opportunity presented by the groundswell of relief and gratitude that had arisen from their thwarting a global plot of the scale of the Ring's to combine the later stages of their plans for the realignment of all the Spectre groups and push it through the Senate while they had the support to do so. This meant that the eight of them who would be running things (Chuck, Sarah, Ellie, Mary, Emma, Anna, John and Rocky) were all being pushed to their final ranks for the plan that they and Diane had been working on.

Chuck was made Vice Admiral in the Navy, Commander of the Spectre Group, Deputy Commander in charge of the Cybercom portion of the Spectre Group, Commander of Cybercom groups and Deputy Director of the Intersect Project. Sarah was now a Major General in the Army, Director of the Intersect Project, Deputy Commander in charge of the Operations side of the Spectre Group and Commander of a Special Operations Group. Ellie was a Rear Admiral in the Navy, Deputy Commander in charge of the Information Dominance side of the Spectre Group and Commander of an Intelligence group.

Anna was made a Rear Admiral Lower Half in the Navy, Deputy Commander of the Cybercom portion of the Spectre Group and Commander of a Cybercom group. Emma became a Brigadier General in the Air Force, Deputy Commander of the Information Dominance side of the Spectre Group and Commander of an Intelligence group. Mary was a Brigadier General in the Air Force, Deputy Commander of the Information Dominance side of the Spectre Group and Commander of an Intelligence group. John was a Brigadier General in the Marines, Commander of a Special Operations Group and Deputy Commander of the Operations side of the Spectre Group….. And Rocky was a Brigadier General in the Army, Deputy Commander of the Operations side of the Spectre Group and Commander of a Special Operations group.

They'd also been elevated to the Commanders of most of the groups that they'd previously been the Deputy Commanders for.

Jeff became a Captain in the Navy, Skippy and Robin were Colonels in the Air Force, Carina and Sam were Colonels in the Marines and Zondra, Zoe and Rick were Colonels in the Army. The eight of them were also appointed as the Deputy Commanders of Information Dominance and Special Operations groups Commanded by Chuck and the others above them.

They were also had the presentation ceremonies for additional awards of the Army (fifth), Navy and Marines (fifth) and Air Force (third) Presidential Unit Citations for the actual Spectre Group, and there were Presidential Medals of Freedom awarded and presented to the key people in the operation (awarded with distinction for Chuck, Sarah and Ellie, along with additional awards of the Defense Distinguished Service Medal and National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal for all three of them, and the National Intelligence Cross for Chuck and Sarah).

In addition to pushing their existing plans to fruition, the President and DNI had used the opportunity presented by the dismissals of key traitors to push something else through. The President appointed Mike as his new National Security Advisor, and Di was promoted to a full General in the Air Force before she was appointed as the new DNI. Her long tenure as the head of the group that everyone was currently falling over themselves to be seen recognising, and her part in many of the achievements of that group over the last nineteen years had been used to push her appointment through the Senate quickly. Roan was also convinced, against his wishes, to begrudgingly accept his appointment as the new Deputy Director of the CIA (which he insisted was only temporary) at the same time. Roan got his revenge though, because he argued that Bry was the only one they could trust who had the reputation and respect to be accepted by the old school as the Administrator of the DEA and Jack agreed with that argument, so Bry was pulled back out of retirement and instated as the Administrator of the DEA.

Most of them breathed of relief when these appointments went through, as this meant that just about the entire United States Intelligence Community was under the control of trusted people. Jane was the Director of the CIA, with Roan as her Deputy Director, Pam was Director of the NCS, Bry was the Administrator of the DEA, they had full confidence in the Director of the FBI being able to keep his house in order now that they'd removed the worst of the bad apples, and they were comfortable with the integrity of the Directors of the DIA, NSA and ATF and Chief of the United States Marshals' Service, and the fact that the worst of the bad seeds had been cleaned out of their organisations too. They still had doubts about Homeland Security, even with the new Secretary, but they didn't have enough power in the current structure to cause too much trouble.

They were well aware that many would feel threatened if they knew that their group was controlling the US intelligence community now (and had quite a bit of influence over the military too for that matter), but as a group they'd been fighting to protect their country against corruption at all levels, and criminal and treasonous activities for over thirty five years now _and_ the President of the United States was with them in this, so they were quite OK with the idea of stacking the deck against international criminals for once.

* * *

On top of the American awards, Chuck, Sarah and Ellie had sessions with the French, German and British ambassadors, because Chuck was awarded the French Legion of Honour (Commander _)_ and the German Gold Cross of Honour for Outstanding Deeds, and was also made a Military Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. Sarah was awarded the French Legion of Honour (Commander) and the German Gold Cross of Honour for Outstanding Deeds, and made a Military Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath.

Ellie was also awarded the French Legion of Honour (Commander) and the German Silver Cross of Honour for Outstanding Deeds (as the criteria for the Gold Cross specified 'at the risk of one's life'), and was made a Military Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath. (It had been made clear to all concerned that while Chuck and Sarah were the ones in the thick of it, Ellie had been planning and commanding all the activities from outside.)

There had been some questions about why the Order of Bath appointments weren't Honorary, until it was explained that they were all Citizens of the British Territories by way of their Cayman Island citizenships.

While other countries may not have agreed, those three countries had seen their actions to be of great moment. They had seen irrefutable proof that these people had either stopped the heads of their primary intelligence agencies from being eliminated in order to replace them with the puppets of some international criminal organisation, or exposed them as puppets of that criminal organisation, and they were determined to show their gratitude.

The French and German ambassadors had been more than a little surprised to be addressed flawlessly and fluently in French or German by Chuck, Sarah _and_ Ellie when they were talking with them. Most of the American politicians and officials who were present in an attempt to get their time in the spotlight were rather put out by this, because these discussions had been going too fast for them to follow, and politicians and officials never liked not knowing what was going on.

Their aggravation levels only increased when they asked what had been discussed, because Chuck told them with a smile that they had been swapping recipes. They couldn't do anything to the heroes of the hour, so they had to try to swallow their reactions to that. Their aggravation was only escalated when the British Ambassador had smiled charmingly and then had his own conversations with the heroes of the hour in fluent French, as he'd been amused by the officials' reactions to the previous discussions, and he was having a great time watching them just about pop a blood vessel as they forced themselves to keep quiet.

The actual discussions they were having hadn't been about anything that concerned the government at all though, they were primarily around how three people of such apparent youth could have possibly had the time to earn the medals and ranks that they had (because the powers that be had insisted that they all attend the award ceremonies in full uniform), but they'd just waved that off as just being in the right place at the right time, or more accurately, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

When all of the ceremonies were finally done, they all piled back into their J50s and headed back to L.A. to catch up on what they'd missed doing while the core team had been tied up in D.C. playing nice with the politicians. They'd been stuck in D.C. for a few days this trip, but their part in the Ring clean up should be finished now, which hopefully meant that they could go back to working through the rest of the issues in front of them without having to worry about them. They didn't forget for a moment that they still had Volkoff and Roark out there to worry about though.

 **A/N: Yes, I realise that some parts of this are similar to what I've used in other stories, but whe** **re** **the story intersects with canon as it does at this point, there are only so many options on how to handle the events in 'my' chuckverse.**


End file.
